Mark Lutz was a mechanical engineer with a Christmas habit. Once a year he would stop at a little cheese shop on 69th and Becher to buy holiday gifts.
The store was the site of the original Merkts cheese spread facility until the company outgrew the location, and later owners operated it as West Allis Cheese & Sausage Shoppe, a quiet retail business. About 10 years ago, Lutz became concerned because the store appeared to be closed, and he called to inquire about it.
Despite having no food service experience, the MSOE grad, his wife Linda and brother Howard wound up buying West Allis Cheese & Sausage in 2002. While other small businesses have struggled to survive the Great Recession, the little cheese shop that could has plowed right through it.
Before the economy took its dive, West Allis became a charter vendor at the Milwaukee Public Market, which opened in 2005. The company has expanded its presence there as the market has evolved.
On April 1, Lutz and his partners took the gutsy step of opening a shop on the East Side, near the UWM campus. Although it offers cheese among a broad mix of grocery and specialty products, that location is more of a restaurant, featuring sandwiches, deli items, coffee drinks and homemade frozen custard. Four large sandwich shop chains have restaurants within walking distance of the West Allis Cheese & Sausage outlet at 2974 N. Oakland Ave.
The expansion of the company includes a leap in internet cheese sales to customers from around the country. Business has tripled since a full-time web manager was hired.
During a chat at the new East Side store and cafe, Lutz said his firm's original West Allis shop had only $130,000 in sales the year before he and his partners bought it. That raises the question of why he chose to make the purchase.
"I felt good about it," he said. "It felt right. How many Wisconsin cheese stores do you see that are not on the highway?
"The location had a great cheese tradition, and if worse came to worst, I had a building I could rent out." There is some irony in that reasoning. The structure was heavily gutted by fire in 2007 and has been rebuilt to include an outdoor dining patio.
Lutz said he and his partners expanded the cheese selection in the store from 40 to 200, and they learned on the job how to deal with the Christmas gift basket rush. "That first Christmas in 2002 we worked through several nights because we had no idea what we were doing," he recalled.
The West Allis store was so heavily tilted toward the holidays, 70 percent of its revenue was earned between Thanksgiving and Christmas. The owners wanted to change that.
"We needed more of a 12-month business base, and we jumped all over the market," Lutz said, referring to the Milwaukee Public Market. West Allis was among the first vendors to commit to the Third Ward venture.
"We have always done well there. The market really made us a company," he said.
In addition to cheese, the Public Market location sells such staples as milk and eggs, as well as made-to-order sandwiches, deli salads and a large selection of Wisconsin specialty foods – jams, jellies, vinegars, bottled marinated vegetables and popcorn. Only about 10 percent of the income from the West Allis store is derived from sandwiches and other restaurant-stye sales.
That figure jumps to 40 percent at the Public Market, and Lutz expects it to be 90 percent on Oakland Avenue.
At the new store, customers can build their own sandwiches or choose among signature sammies that include Nueske's liver sausage, swiss cheese, red onion and whole grain mustard ($6.99), a grilled cheese with sloppy joe filling (6.99), and a grilled roast beef with blue cheese, caramelized onions, arugula and garlic mayo on French bread ($7.99). Daily specials, all $7.99, range from the grilled turkey brie featuring apples, arugula and cranberry chutney on Wednesdays to the Cubano – pork, ham, swiss and pickle on a hoagie roll -- on Fridays.
Signature and daily special sandwiches come with a side salad of the day. The East Side menu also includes brats ($3), hot dogs ($3), chili dogs ($3.50), poutine ($3.50) and homemade lasagna or mac and cheese for $4.99 a pound.
The Oakland Avenue building began life as a gas station and was later a donut shop. Bella's Fat Cat occupied it before that company went out of business, and Lutz bought the custard-making equipment Bella's had used. Malts, sundaes and candy mix-ins are being offered with the basic frozen custard.
Speaking of the national name brand competition he faces from Subway, Cousins, Quizno's and Jimmy John's at his new outlet, Lutz said, "there is no contest between the quality we are offering and the others. For a few quarters more, you are getting products from Nueske's, Breadsmith and Dietz and Watson."
He said the staff at one of his competitors phoned his staff one night, offering to trade sandwiches. His people declined.
Damien has been around so long, he was at Summerfest the night George Carlin was arrested for speaking the seven dirty words you can't say on TV. He was also at the Uptown Theatre the night Bruce Springsteen's first Milwaukee concert was interrupted for three hours by a bomb scare. Damien was reviewing the concert for the Milwaukee Journal. He wrote for the Journal and Journal Sentinel for 37 years, the last 29 as theater critic.
During those years, Damien served two terms on the board of the American Theatre Critics Association, a term on the board of the association's foundation, and he studied the Latinization of American culture in a University of Southern California fellowship program. Damien also hosted his own arts radio program, "Milwaukee Presents with Damien Jaques," on WHAD for eight years.
Travel, books and, not surprisingly, theater top the list of Damien's interests. A news junkie, he is particularly plugged into politics and international affairs, but he also closely follows the Brewers, Packers and Marquette baskeball. Damien lives downtown, within easy walking distance of most of the theaters he attends.
