"Bar Month" at OnMilwaukee is back! For the entire month of March, we're serving up fun articles on bars, clubs and beverages – including guides, the latest trends, bar reviews, the results of our Best of Bars poll and more. Follow along with the #DrinkOnMke hashtag too. Grab a designated driver and dive in!
Milwaukee's General Mitchell International Airport will celebrate the grand opening the country's first known airport beer garden on Monday, March 16, at a time when traffic at airports has been heavily affected by the Coronavirus outbreak.
The beer garden – called Barons' Beer Garden – will replace the Valentine's Coffee location on Concourse C and is a partnership between the airport, Milwaukee County Parks and SSP America, which owns the concession rights at the airport.
The new space was designed by Chicago's O'Kelly & Kasprak, LLC, and has timber-focused design that integrates the County Parks' Oak Leaf Trail logo and a decorative entry arch.
The parks system will not derive revenue from the indoor "garden," which was named in honor of the city's historical beer barons: Val Blatz, Frederick Miller, Frederick Pabst and Joseph Schlitz.
The grand opening event on Monday will include an official ribbon cutting, food and beverage samples, and live entertainment.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
