Maurer's Urban Market, a grocery store located in the street-level retail space of the 7Seventy7 residential tower, 777 N. Van Buren St., Downtown, will close in a few weeks according to employees.
"We can confirm that Maurer’s Urban Market will be closing, and we are exploring future options for this space," said Mark Lucius, spokesman for Northwestern Mutual, the building’s developer.
Madison-based Maurer opened the 10,500-square-foot store in May 2019.
According to staffers I talked to, the store will be closing in a few weeks.
He added that the coronavirus outbreak has impacted business and that Maurer hopes the store can reopen at a later date.
"I hope (we) reopen, too," he said. "We have a lot of great customers. We get a lot of folks from the Third Ward, from the offices around here (plus apartments upstairs)."
Co-owner Jeff Maurer responded to an email Thursday, saying, "We have no comment at this time."
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
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