Yesterday was a big day for the Milwaukee Public Market, 400 N. Water St.

Nehring's Family Market opened in the old Rupena's space, and features a small market of prepared foods, pasta, tomato sauces, oils, Purple Door Ice Cream and more.

There's also a sit-down, tavern-style area with 12 local beers on tap and about 20 different bottled beers.

A wood-fired pizza oven will be in full swing soon.

The new stall is unique and feels a little more secluded and unlike anything else in the Public Market.

John and Anne Nehring also own the Sendik's on Oakland Avenue in Shorewood, V. Richard's Bakery in Brookfield and G. Groppi Food Market in Bay View.

The Public Market also welcomed the "tightrope bear" from The Shops of Grand Avenue. After balancing back-and-forth on a tightrope for 30 years at the mall, the bear, named "Professor Stein," is now perched atop the South entrance of the market.

"For now, we mainly wanted to get him in place and on display. We're exploring addition options for him," says Paul Schwartz, operations and communications manager for the Milwaukee Public Market.

"We've already had a number of people standing beneath him and taking pictures and a few came into the office to say, 'I used to drive from the suburbs to come see that bear at Grand Avenue!'"

In 1982, The Rouse Company developed The Grand Avenue Mall with traditional German influences featuring the Speisegarten food court, modeled after a traditional German Beer Hall. Rouse also incorporated a whimsical 7-foot bear dressed in a top hat and suit coat, riding along a tightrope on a unicycle.

When Northwestern Mutual Life redeveloped the mall in 2004, the bear came down and went into storage.