The Third Ward Restaurant Rooms That Went Dark Since Last Winter Are Filling Back Up

Riverfront Pizzeria Bar & Grille ran at 509 E. Erie St. for about 20 years. The restaurant that came after it lasted about a year and a half. Those two numbers frame what happened to the Historic Third Ward's dining rooms in 2026. Restaurants still close here, and some of them were long-running. The rooms they leave behind don't stay empty for long.

Since late 2025, three Ward restaurant spaces have lost their tenants and lined up new ones. Two have already reopened under new names. The third has a license application filed with the city. All three sit within a short walk of each other on Broadway and Erie Street.

Erie Street turned over in a single summer

The quickest refill was the Char'd space at 222 E. Erie St. Char'd closed at the end of May, and by the first week of September OnMilwaukee reported that bb.q Chicken had officially opened in the same space. The room sat dark for about three months. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel also covered the opening in the former Char'd space.

The new tenant is a very different kind of restaurant from the old one. bb.q Chicken is a Korean fried chicken chain founded in South Korea in 1995. It now has more than 3,500 locations in more than 50 countries, including more than 250 in the United States. The name is pronounced "bee-bee-que" and stands for "Best of the Best Quality." The Erie Street menu centers on wings, bone-in or boneless, in flavors that include Golden Original, Honey Garlic, Soy Garlic, Gang-Jeong and Wings of Fire. It also serves Ddeok-Bokki, the rice cake and fish cake street dish in sweet chili sauce, plus a milder Rosé Ddeok-Bokki, kimchi fried rice and boba teas.

At its September opening the restaurant posted these hours:

• Monday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.
• Friday and Saturday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.
• Sunday, 4 to 9 p.m.

Weekday lunch hours mean this corner of Erie now draws a midday crowd as well as an evening one.

Broadway took longer and kept the room

Two blocks over, the Bavette La Boucherie space at 217 N. Broadway took longer to reopen. Bavette closed in January. WELA, a modern Thai restaurant, announced a Sept. 9 soft opening, and Visit Milwaukee confirmed that it opened on that date. That's a gap of roughly eight months. Much of that time shows in the dining room.

According to OnMilwaukee's preview of the opening, the redesign keeps the building's exposed Cream City brick and heavy timber beams. It adds chartreuse banquettes, backlit wooden lattice screens, illuminated wooden cubbies along the back bar and blue tile on the front of the bar. The new restaurant was built into the old building's shell.

The name, pronounced "way-lah," means "time" in Thai. Chef Somchock "Sam" Sansawas trained under chef Thitid "Ton" Tassanakajohn at Le Du, the Michelin-starred modern Thai restaurant in Bangkok. He told OnMilwaukee that the kitchen should be read as Thai and not as fusion. "This is Thai food," he said. "It is the style of food that so many restaurants are serving in Thailand and New York right now." The ownership group includes Nini Trick and Kim Kongsin, who are also partners in Thai-namite, along with Bigsun Phonimdaeng and Sansawas. Aleesha Amador runs the front of house, and Jared Steffen leads the beverage program.

The opening menu as OnMilwaukee described it:

• A one-bite crab tartlet with a lemongrass and makrut lime coconut reduction, finished with lump crab and salmon roe
• Hamachi crudo with fish sauce and an apple-basil sorbet
• Grilled sticky wings, deboned and stuffed with sticky rice
• Five curries built on house-made curry pastes, plus a vegan option
• Phuket-style five-spice braised pork belly
• A whole deboned branzino served with two contrasting sauces
• A beef short rib cooked sous vide for 24 hours, then grilled and served with crying tiger, nam prik num and jeow

Of the branzino, Sansawas told OnMilwaukee, "One side is salty and sweet and the other is spicy and sour." Desserts are a short list of house sorbets, including apple basil, yuzu and mango. The menu is set to change with the seasons, and chef's table dinners are planned for later. At the bar, Steffen works with scratch-made infusions and syrups and techniques such as fat washing.

By late October WELA was on OnMilwaukee's list of must-try new Milwaukee restaurants for 2026. WELA's website lists temporary hours of Wednesday and Thursday 4:30 to 10 p.m., Friday and Saturday 4:30 to 10:30 p.m., and Sunday 4:30 to 10 p.m. Reservations are booked online through Toast.

The riverfront room is changing hands faster

The two Ward rooms that reopened this fall each had a single closure and a single replacement. The space at 509 E. Erie St. shows how much faster turnover has become in one room. Here is its timeline from BizTimes' Oct. 29 report:

1. About 20 years: Riverfront Pizzeria Bar & Grille occupies the space and closes in February 2024.
2. About a year and a half: Brisa Do Mar, a Mediterranean and Italian restaurant, takes over in 2024 and closes in late 2025. Milwaukee Magazine reported in December 2025 that the closing was permanent.
3. April 2026: An affiliate of Renner Architects, which developed the Hansen's Landing condominium complex where the space sits, sells the 6,200-square-foot room to Milwaukee-based Herrera Properties LLC for $1.55 million.
4. October 2026: The Brunch Society LLC files a license application with the city's Office of the City Clerk License Division for a brunch restaurant in the space.

The application lists renovations including new furniture, paint and flooring, and it includes no menu. The lease runs through Sept. 1, 2028. Urban Milwaukee described the concept as a European-inspired brunch restaurant.

The Ward's restaurant rooms are in demand. Char'd's space reopened in about three months, Bavette's in about eight, and the riverfront room drew a buyer within months of Brisa Do Mar closing. Tenancies on the riverfront are getting shorter at the same time. One operator held 509 E. Erie for two decades, and the next held it for about 18 months. A brunch concept would be the third use of that room since early 2024.

What the three blocks add up to this month

In mid-November, the stretch from Broadway to the river covers a wider range of food than it did at the start of the year. Bavette's butcher-shop dining room now serves house-made Thai curries and a 24-hour short rib under the same timber beams. Char'd's corner on Erie is now a counter-style wing and Ddeok-Bokki spot with lunch hours. Farther east, the riverfront space in Hansen's Landing has a pending license, new owners and a lease running into the fall of 2028.

All three rooms stayed restaurants, and in 2026 each one waited months for its next operator, not years.

If you own a loft or condo near Broadway or Erie Street and want to understand how changes on your block affect your home, the Shar Borg Team can walk you through it. Request a complimentary concierge consultation.