By OnMilwaukee Staff Writers   Published Oct 20, 2015 at 7:06 AM Photography: Lori Fredrich

Season's eatings! October may be over, but Dining Month on OnMilwaukee, presented by the restaurants of Potawatomi Hotel & Casino, is still cooking, dishing out your winning picks in this year's Best of Dining poll. Congratulations to all of the winners, and happy eating for all those who voted!

Hawthorne Coffee Roasters

This one is a stunner. For the first time since our dining poll began, neither Stone Creek nor Colectivo/Alterra took home top prize for best coffee in Milwaukee. Rather, it was newcomer Hawthorne Coffee Roasters. That's the power of a strong social media voting presence.

As a retail shop, Hawthorne just opened Nov. 3 at 4177 S. Howell Ave., in the former home of the Rodeo Bar.  It won 31.1 percent of the votes in this year's contest.

The cafe is of the first for the South Side neighborhood, which sports a Starbucks or two, but no locally owned coffee shops barring the Colectivo in the airport.

Partners Steve Hawthorne and Wade Nemetze purchased the building on Howell Ave. and moved their roasting operations from their former space in West Allis to the new South Side location in May. About half of the building is used for the cafe, with the adjoining remainder of the space used for storage, and eventually expansion of the coffee company's roasting facility.

Runners up:

2. Stone Creek Coffee Roasters
3. Colectivo
4. Valentine Coffee
5. Anodyne Coffee Roasters

Foodie picks:

  • Anodyne

  • Colectivo

  • Hawthorne

  • Stone Creek Coffee

  • Valentine