One week you’re getting a (pretty great) fish fry at Café Centraal, the next the longtime Bay View restaurant announces it’s closing for extensive renovations. Yes, today, Lowlands Group revealed that Centraal will close for renovations beginning January 2, and that it will reopen in early February. Few specifics are being announced at this time, though big things are being teased.
“After 10 years of heavy use of the space, we’re looking forward to freshening it up and adding some of the details we wish we could have done when we first opened,” says Lowlands Group’s Dan Herwig. “Centraal has always been an amazing place to get a beer—and without getting into details—we think this new experience will be unlike anything else in Milwaukee, or the States for that matter.”
Here’s the full press release:
Milwaukee, WI – December 6th, 2018 – The Lowlands Group announces today that it will be closing Café Centraal in Milwaukee’s Bay View neighborhood for renovations beginning Jan. 2, with a scheduled reopening planned for early February.
Café Centraal first opened in September of 2008 and is the latest in a series of Lowlands Group’s grand cafés to be renovated, with their Café Hollander locations in Tosa and on the East Side both receiving recent facelifts, as well as Café Benelux in the Third Ward. The work at Café Centraal will be much more extensive than these previous projects.
“When we first opened Centraal 10 years ago, Bay View was a very different neighborhood and we opened on a shoestring budget,” said Dan Herwig, director of brand and marketing at Lowlands Group. “This renovation is all about setting Centraal up for its next ten-year run in Bay View.”
Planned updates include expanding the kitchen substantially, adding new food and beverage coolers and freezers in the basement, refinishing the flooring, redesigning the bar with a dramatic increase the number of draught lines, and a visual update throughout the space.
“After 10 years of heavy use of the space, we’re looking forward to freshening it up and adding some of the details we wish we could have done when we first opened,” said Herwig. “Centraal has always been an amazing place to get a beer—and without getting into details—we think this new experience will be unlike anything else in Milwaukee, or the States for that matter.”
The group plans an evolution of the existing Centraal concept—including an update to the food and beverage menus—but is not announcing any specifics at this time.
Café Centraal is open regular hours through the end of the year, including brunch for seven consecutive days during the holidays, from Dec. 26 through New Year’s Day. It is closed on Christmas Day.