Three Milwaukee photographers are aiming to harness the power of community through a new project that unites two of the city’s favorite beverages: beer and coffee.

Longtime friends Rob Gustafson, Simon McConico and Jake Rohde are just beginning their journey toward cafe ownership; but it's a venture that they hope could change the way Milwaukee thinks about all three.

While it doesn’t yet have a location (the partners are currently zeroing in on potential spaces in the Wauwatosa market), the vision is clear: Vennture Brew Company is a coffee shop and a beer bar. It’s a place where beer and coffee are brewed and roasted on site, and inspiration is the mother of invention. And maybe most of all, it’s a community gathering space that provides not only a place to drink and work, but also a foundation for small businesses to collaborate for the greater good.

Sounds great, right? But … photography? Brewing? Coffee roasting? Community?
How do any of these things relate? That’s the question we wanted to answer when we sat down with two of the budding entrepreneurs to find out more about their concept.

From concept to reality

"For my 29th birthday, me and a bunch of guys went to Michigan for the weekend," explains McConico. "And we visited a bunch of breweries. And we all had so much fun we decided to make it an annual event."

In the years that followed, the guys traveled to a variety of brewing hotspots including Minneapolis, Central Wisconsin, Illinois and Denver, Colorado. During their trips, they immersed themselves in the culture and process of craft brewing. And they gained an appreciation for the way brewers support one another and cultivate mutually beneficial collaborations. And soon the wheels began turning.

"Jake [Rohde] and I have been business partners for the past eight years," says McConico. "And we’ve known Rob [Gustafson] for about that long. And between the three of us, we’ve met so many people along the way. It got us brainstorming. What can we do that’s artisan – that employs our skill as artists – that’s also scale-able? And we wanted it to be something that really allowed us to take the idea of community, the people we meet every day, and pulling it together with things we love."

Both Gustafson and McConico are hobby brewers who started home brewing five or six years ago. McConico even took a job tending bar at Draft & Vessel to learn the ins and outs of the hospitality side of things. Meanwhile, Rohde had developed an obsession with coffee, leading him to start roasting beans at home.

"We’ve all sort of immersed ourselves in the industries and the processes," says Gustafson. "And we’re all active learners, so we’ve been reading and studying and learning everything we can. And at some point, maybe two years ago, we started talking about a business concept. It was something we got really serious about in the past year."

Serious meant embarking on a journey which included plenty of creative brainstorming, but also the construction of a 60-page business plan, laying out their idea for a brewery and cafe.

In the process, the partners came up with the name, as well as a brand and logo that expresses the intersections between relationships and beverages.

"There’s these two drinks. And there's community," says McConico "And Vennture is like this Venn diagram that illustrates how beer and coffee intersect with community."

Simple, sure. But the goal is to take that simplicity and make it new again.

"We want to take the pretention out of coffee and beer," says McConico. "Someone who drinks Folger’s every day with lots of milk and sugar ... we want there to be an openness in our approach and an opportunity to introduce them to something they've never had. In the end, we're taking what we love from bars and coffee shops and doing something new."

Beyond a gathering place

"We have a lot of ideas about how we can really connect what we're doing with the concept of community," notes McConico as he and Gustafson begin reciting their wish list for the new concept.

"We’d like a place with a patio and hopefully some green space," says Gustafson. "And we want a space where we can bring in food trucks for events."

"We also want to have a space that would allow us to host events, including markets for artists where we can feature what other people are making," adds McConico.

The two also envision a place that could function as a drop off for CSA shares from a local farm, and that those CSA boxes might be filled with extra special touches, like growlers of beer and pounds of coffee.

"We also really want to take advantage of the connections we have," notes McConico. "And we’d like to facilitate the idea of community among coffee roasters and brewers in the city. We’d like to see our beans at their shops and use theirs … and feature beers from other small breweries."

"We might even go so far as to create different experiences for people who want to explore the beer or coffee in other cities," says Gustafson. "Maybe ‘Beer Venntures to Chicago or St. Louis."

But when you get down to the brass tacks, Vennture Brew Co. is about creating a great spot to hang out.

"We’d like it to be a place where people can gather, where they can work, and where they can grab a coffee or a beer and enjoy really f*cking delicious drinks," says McConico.

Gustafson, McConico and Rohde will be pitching their idea at the next Fund Milwaukee meeting on Aug. 29 at 5:30 p.m. at the Walker’s Point Stone Creek Cafe, 158 S. Barclay St.

Gustafson, McConico and Rohde will be pitching their idea to local investors at the next Fund Milwaukee meeting on Aug. 29 at 5:30 p.m. at the Walker’s Point Stone Creek Cafe, 158 S. Barclay St.  You can also follow their progress on the Facebook and Twitter.