With the city currently in the throes of local awards fever, Milwaukee Record presents The Randoms, a series of highly specific and delightfully arbitrary “best of” awards that do away with pesky voting and feigned attempts at impartiality. Throughout the week, we’ll be recognizing the people, organizations, and places that help elevate life in Milwaukee. This week is sponsored by Boone & Crockett, 2016’s Best Bar With A Taco Truck Out Back (Bay View).
Milwaukee dining, drinking, and coffee are collectively in such a good place these days, it’s not all that uncommon for two separate epicurean endeavors to share the same property. This year alone found Iron Grate BBQ Co. weekending at Hawthorne Coffee Roasters, Gypsy Taco permanently parking behind Boone & Crockett, and Dock18 Cocktail Lab using Twisted Path and Bittercube spirits crafted mere feet away in its concoctions. The city’s penchant for unconventional collaboration seems to have come into its own in 2016, but it’s not a new phenomenon. Not by a long shot.
Down Howell Avenue, a few blocks south of Humboldt Park, sits a longstanding neighborhood tap called The Bubbler. That’s not the important part, though. At the rear of that bar sits an unaffiliated pizza place that sets its own hours and has a different owner altogether. Vinchi’s Pizza started out in a southside bar—where it thrived since the ’90s—before moving to the back of the Bubbler. Those who have managed to find this restaurant (within a bar) surely feel fortunate they had. The crispy and buttery thin crust is carried to hallowed ground with savory sauce and generous heap of gooey, fresh mozzarella.
In spite of its obscure location and disputably-egregious use of canned mushrooms, you’ll find a surprising contender for one of the best carry out and dine-in pizzerias located in or around Bay View. Vinchi’s is a relatively hidden gem that’s literally tucked away…in the back of some bar called The Bubbler, to be specific. Cash only!
