Georgie Porgie’s Treefort Restaurant, the frozen custard and burger eatery with locations in Oak Creek and Mount Pleasant, says it will open George’s Garage – "a concept meant to provide a more grown-up experience to the current Treefort theme" – next door to the Oak Creek location, 9555 S. Howell Ave., in May.
The new dining room space will add 22 seats – doubling the restaurant’s capacity. It will also serve craft beer, which is something that customers have repeatedly requested in the past, according to restaurant co-owner Peter Liapis.
The garage concept, meanwhile, is meant to complement Georgie Porgie’s weekly summer classic car shows. The name is a tribute to the restaurant's founder, the late George Liapis.
The two restaurants are already pretty fabulous atmospheres for kids. While the Oak Creek location has a cool tree built into it, the Mount Pleasant eatery ups the ante with an actual "treefort" balcony.
"George’s Garage is a place to come relax, enjoy delicious food and a cold one in a more grown-up space," said Peter Liapis in a news release. "We know car enthusiasts will love the space it and kids will think is cool! My brother Lou and I are thrilled to pull off a space that honors our dad’s legacy while honoring the desire for our customers in Oak Creek to have more seating."
The Liapis brothers hope to keep some of the details a surprise, but a keen eye may spot some design clues "hidden" in the image above.
Georgie Porgie’s was founded by George Liapis in 1991 and is now run by his sons Peter and Lou.
The restaurant hosts an annual burger contest, which takes place this year on Thursday, May 25. Last year it also hosted its first custard flavor contest, for which I was a judge, along with Kathleen McCann, the co-author of our book, "Milwaukee Frozen Custard."
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.
