A nice vote of support

Yesterday Milwaukee Magazine released their annual readers choice award results.

Water Buffalo was named best moderately priced restaurant and runner up to Trocadero for best outdoor dining. The real pleasant surprise was Swig being voted in for the Tapas/Small Plate category, we had only been open a month in the new location and closed for 9 months so again, a bit surprised by that one.

Wine Tasting events

This week we have taken the first step at Swig back to our popular wine tasting events. The first step was the re-installation of our weekly feature list, excited vendors take the opportunity to fill that feature list with new and exciting wines and the ones that our guests demand more consistent supply of end up on our main menu and are almost always featured as part of our wine tasting program.

For those of you who don't remember, the wine tastings occur once a month. We taste 2 reds, 2 whites and a sparkling plus you choose one small plate. All for $25 a person. Plus we sell the tasted wine at a discount at the end of the evening.

Look for more details soon.

Every once in a while..

The pieces don't all fit together and play nice. That was our problem tonight, Saturday July 5th at Water Buffalo.
All was fine until the witching hour of about 830pm. We were running a bit short staffed with the holiday and everyone was doing their best to pitch in so as few guests experiences were affected as possible. But, we crashed and burned, I have no excuse, we did all we could to save the ship as she was sinking but to no avail. I'd say about 85% of our guests left pleased tonight and that's pretty far away from making me comfortable. So what's the point of this rant? To say that I'm sorry and we're human and we make mistakes. I hope if you did join us tonight that you either finished your meal very satisfied or at least I got a chance to chat with you for a bit to say I'm sorry for ruining your night. If neither of those two things happened, please visit the home page of this site and send me an email so that I can make it up to you.

Play in the City and 3rd Ward growth

Not sure if you know this, but there's a person out there who's name is Karen that the city of Milwaukee employs to blog, yes that's right, blog about all things Milwaukee. She basically explores the universe that we know as Milwaukee from virtually every angle, it's a pretty neat job, Check it out here. Of course I know about it because she was kind enough to visit both Water Buffalo and Swig over the last year, but I am also an avid reader as well.



Summer is here and the riverwalk and 3rd Ward in general is a buzzin. It's even slightly surreal to stand in the spot pictured and see all the activity that now includes the patio at Water Buffalo. Even traffic on Broadway where Swig and the Palms are located is up significantly from a year or two ago, it feels great!

On Milwaukee loves Swig

Another really great review for Swig. This time from Amy Carlson of On Milwaukee . com. Quite a headline too: Spectacular food, service make Swig a standout! What more could you ask for! I wasn't super pleased that she referred to former meals as average with highlights in between, but then again OnMilwaukee.com did vote Water Buffalo best new restaurant last year and Amy herself called the food good, but I digress. If you'd like to read the article, please do so, click here

Our single biggest compliment yet.

Tonight we had the pleasure of serving 7 guests from the Milwaukee Health Department. When I approached the host for the group she said that our health inspector personally recommended the group dine at Water Buffalo based upon our last inspection that she performed a couple of weeks ago.

A compliment from some particularly discriminating guests that I am quite proud of, thank you.

New Swig review in Shepherd Express this week.

This one I was waiting for. Jeff Buetner had reviewed Swig in it’s 1st location and specifically mentioned that he thought lunch was a good idea and I was hoping he would recognize that we had listened in this new review and he did indeed. Read it here if you like It’s really too bad that so many of these articles have to come out just while we’re getting our kinks worked out as so many guests come in with standards set pretty darn high after these kind of write ups. So, if you happen to join us in these 1st few weeks, please be forgiving, or at least share your experience with me so that we can improve for you.

How quickly we have been revealed.

In a very pleasant surprise, Carol Deptolla decided to write a quick piece on our reopening. She was very engaging on the phone and distinctly interested in our new version of Swig. She expects to fully review the new location later this year. We were ecstatic with the coverage as we didn't expect to see any coverage in the Journal after Dennis was so kind to us. Here's the link

The home stretch for Swig

Opening, or in this case re-opening a restaurant is sure to take you out of the regular blogging cycle. We are finally in the last days, hours really, of our practice/preview week at Swig. We re-open for business in our new location officially on Monday April 14th at 11am. Please come and check out our new digs!

Dessert part 2

Chef Frank has really hit a home run! His determination has won out and he has created a cheesecake that easily rivals the cakes that we received from Simma's for years. Seriously it's THAT GOOD. Well done good sir. Now being served at Water Buffalo and certainly on the menu at Swig in the spring.

Ah, the smell of new construction.

The boys, and girls (Hi Liz), from Flux continue to impress. You can't imagine the art that these guys construct daily. These last few weeks I've watched them transform a plain old dry walled wall into a work of art. A custom South American Hardwood relief structure that literally runs the entire east/west length of the new Swig. We're so excited for you to see.

Braving the Wisconsin Winter

A huge thanks to those of you who have chosen to brave this winter so many weekends in a row. It's quite a statement that you continue to make it out in this mess and the staff thank you even more. Insiders tip for those that are driving in, please feel free to use our parking lot to the North of Starbucks on Water Street, it's free to Water Buffalo guests.

experimenting with dessert

Here's a treat, Chef Frank has been hard at work baking, baking and baking to place some new fresh desserts at Water Buffalo and Swig. You can try them nearly every day at Water Buffalo for now. Please forgive his fascination with Biscotti and Almonds this time around. The cheesecake and chocolate cakes are darn near perfection. Enjoy!

Swig prep rally

Sauce is now officially gone and we're nearly ready to bring you the new and improved version of Swig in the 3rd Ward. We're still shooting for early spring and plans are coming together nicely, we're very excited around here.

A great success and a mistake

Our first new years eve was a great success and we've heard from many of you that joined us that you enjoyed yourselves and the package that we offered in our last seating. However, I must confess that in the heat of being a bit overwhelmed I made a bad decision. One that was based on serving efficiency rather that with your New Years experience in mind. When putting together our early seatings, I offered a complimentary glass of champagne for everyone that joined us, but when it came time for everyone to be seated I had not planned appropriately timing wise and we did not make the free champagne as accessible as it should have been. So, if you joined us for New Years eve and didn't get your complimentary champagne that night, I welcome you to join us again for a round of drinks and appetizers on me. Just send me an email from the main page of our website and I'll take care of everything. Thank you for your support of Water Buffalo and I hope that you will accept my apologies for a bad decision.