Cheers! It's Bar Month at OnMilwaukee – so get ready to drink up more bar articles, imbibable stories and cocktailing content, brought to you by Potawatomi Casino Hotel and Miller Lite. Thirsty for more? To find even more bar content, click here!
MobCraft, which closed nearly four months ago is making a comeback and when it returns it will likely look very familiar to its regulars.
Former employee Sarah Halstead and her husband Michael bought the shuttered MobCraft Beer last week and have applied for a license to get the Walker’s Point brewery and taproom at 505 S. 5th St. back up and running under the MobCraft name.
After announcing it was for sale last fall, MobCraft closed after 12 years in business on Dec. 1.
Former CEO Henry Schwartz said that the sale closed on Friday and that the parties are, “working on transitioning all the assets and things over as we speak.”
If all the required approvals and licenses are received, MobCraft could reopen in May.
Sarah Halstead is a former MobCraft employee, where she worked on the business side and in human resources from 2019 until 2023.
"I worked there as the director of finance and HR, so I was very familiar with MobCraft and everyone in the MobCraft community," Sarah said. "So when everything came out last October and November that they were going to be closing, my husband Mike and I started talking about, 'is this an opportunity that we might be able to look at?'
"The more and more we looked at it, the more and more it made sense. Fast-forward a couple months and here we are."
Halstead said discussions with Schwartz began in November.
The Halsteads do not yet have a head brewer and are looking at a number of options to get up and running, including temporarily contract brewing with another local brewer.
"That would be a short-term thing just with how much beer we would want to have (to open)," she explained. "I'm a project manager by training and trade before I went into finance, so I always have a plan, a backup plan and a backup to the backup plan.
"So when I say here's my plan, it normally is here's my plan, but here's also, you know, A, B and C as contingencies in case we hit any roadblocks."
Halstead added that they hope to be able to open in spring.
"Right now we're kind of at the mercy of the regulatory agencies; we're just waiting on permits and licenses and just trying to do as much as we can on our side to be prepared for whenever we get some green lights from those different places that we need to have.
"Ideally we'd like to be open sometime this spring. Most realistically is probably sometime in May. But we're just going to be flexible as information arises and do the best we can."
According to their filing – which noted that they paid $160,000 for the business’ intellectual property and hard assets – the Halsteads plan to continue to brew beer and serve it, along with other alcoholic beverages, and food – including pizza, sandwiches, giant pretzels and snacks.
They also plan to continue MobCraft’s tradition of crowd-sourcing beer ideas, as well as canning beer for distribution.
"The flagship beers will remain the same" Halstead affirmed. "Those core beers will definitely still be the same. Beyond that, we're evaluating all the other options of what it might look like in terms of a tap room, beverage and food experience.
"We'll also be keeping a similar-ish menu," she added. "(For) the city licensing applications all I did was copy down what MobCraft had closed with as the initial starting point. But, you know, some form of pizzas, appetizers, sandwiches, seasonal salads. That kind of thing."
Halstead also said that once the brewhouse is up and running, the revived MobCraft would consider continuing to do contract brewing for other brewers.
"We'd be open to that," she said. "It's a very big (brew) system."
As for what will be different, that's a little harder to pin down.
"We'll have more details on what will be different as we work through our project plan and our task list," Halstead said. "There's going be a little bit more seating inside. But we're hoping to still have the sidewalk dining."
“I'm super excited for them,” Schwartz said. “I can't wait to see how MobCraft grows from here!”
Schwartz and brewer Andrew Gierczak originally opened MobCraft in Madison but moved to Milwaukee and opened the Walker’s Point facility with its nearly 3,800-square-foot taproom in 2016.
MobCraft appeared on Season 7 of television's "Shark Tank," and in 2021 it announced that it would open three new locations across the country.
Locations in Denver and Woodstock, Illinois opened and later closed. A planned location in Waterford, Wisconsin never opened.
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.
