I don't usually write about bars, but when change comes to my neighborhood, I try to stay on top of it.
And I've been watching the construction going on in the old Northstar Bistro location for a couple weeks, eagerly awaiting the opening of the Three Lions Pub. For former regulars at the old Brit Inn -- now just a shell of a building -- the best news is the pending return to Oakland Avenue is likable barmen David Price and Christopher Tinker, far better known as Tink.
Native Brits Price and Tinker are partners, along with the Brat House's Scott Schaefer, in the new enterprise.
The goal had been a Dec. 28 opening for the pub at 4515 N. Oakland Ave. But last-minute delays have pushed that back to early January. Construction is continuing on the renovated interior, which features a long bar along the north wall of the space.
Price says he plans on making soccer a main draw at the pub, along with offering the normal line of drinks, including cask ale; and pub fare including fish and chips.
Until the doors open, you can keep an eye on the progress at the Three Lions Pub Facebook page.
Tim Cuprisin is the media columnist for OnMilwaukee.com. He's been a journalist for 30 years, starting in 1979 as a police reporter at the old City News Bureau of Chicago, a legendary wire service that's the reputed source of the journalistic maxim "if your mother says she loves you, check it out." He spent a couple years in the mean streets of his native Chicago, and then moved on to the Green Bay Press-Gazette and USA Today, before coming to the Milwaukee Journal in 1986.
A general assignment reporter, Cuprisin traveled Eastern Europe on several projects, starting with a look at Poland after five years of martial law, and a tour of six countries in the region after the Berlin Wall opened and Communism fell. He spent six weeks traversing the lands of the former Yugoslavia in 1994, linking Milwaukee Serbs, Croats and Bosnians with their war-torn homeland.
In the fall of 1994, a lifetime of serious television viewing earned him a daily column in the Milwaukee Journal (and, later the Journal Sentinel) focusing on TV and radio. For 15 years, he has chronicled the changes rocking broadcasting, both nationally and in Milwaukee, an effort he continues at OnMilwaukee.com.
When he's not watching TV, Cuprisin enjoys tending to his vegetable garden in the backyard of his home in Whitefish Bay, cooking and traveling.
