The home stretch for Swig

Opening, or in this case re-opening a restaurant is sure to take you out of the regular blogging cycle. We are finally in the last days, hours really, of our practice/preview week at Swig. We re-open for business in our new location officially on Monday April 14th at 11am. Please come and check out our new digs!

experimenting with dessert

Here's a treat, Chef Frank has been hard at work baking, baking and baking to place some new fresh desserts at Water Buffalo and Swig. You can try them nearly every day at Water Buffalo for now. Please forgive his fascination with Biscotti and Almonds this time around. The cheesecake and chocolate cakes are darn near perfection. Enjoy!

Swig prep rally

Sauce is now officially gone and we're nearly ready to bring you the new and improved version of Swig in the 3rd Ward. We're still shooting for early spring and plans are coming together nicely, we're very excited around here.

A great success and a mistake

Our first new years eve was a great success and we've heard from many of you that joined us that you enjoyed yourselves and the package that we offered in our last seating. However, I must confess that in the heat of being a bit overwhelmed I made a bad decision. One that was based on serving efficiency rather that with your New Years experience in mind. When putting together our early seatings, I offered a complimentary glass of champagne for everyone that joined us, but when it came time for everyone to be seated I had not planned appropriately timing wise and we did not make the free champagne as accessible as it should have been. So, if you joined us for New Years eve and didn't get your complimentary champagne that night, I welcome you to join us again for a round of drinks and appetizers on me. Just send me an email from the main page of our website and I'll take care of everything. Thank you for your support of Water Buffalo and I hope that you will accept my apologies for a bad decision.

New Years Packages - Sold Out

This years New Years Eve celebration is now SOLD OUT.
Thank you so much for thinking of celebrating with us at Water Buffalo.
There are a couple of spots open at 545pm for off of the menu seating.
We look forward to a happy and prosperous new year for all of our guests.

The Season and New Years

We always look forward to the Holiday Season, guests across the board just seem, well, happier and it makes for a great atmosphere for your night out, especially New Years Eve. While it's widely known in the restaurant and bar business as "amateur night", mostly due to the actions that some people choose during this celebration, we've alway been careful to try to provide a fun and memorable evening for friends and family. Here is the link where you can read about our New Years options at Water Buffalo. Those of you that attended our last two New Years at Swig will recognize the format, it's great for a start to your night or an all inclusive new years night out.

A quick Mountain break

Angie and I enjoyed a brief mental break last weekend in the mountains of Nevada, I'm still upset that my phone would work out here. Take the quick trip out to Red Rock the next time you visit Las Vegas. It was one of the highlights of our visit.

Gift Cards now online

Just a quick note of convenience, we now offer the ability to purchase gift cards online.
It's a really simple form, just click here.

Thanks

A big Happy Thanksgiving from our extended family of over 200 servers, managers, hosts, bartenders, cooks and service staff to yours! We appreciate and give thanks for your loyalty and patronage and look forward to spending the Holiday Season together again.

Happy Holidays, from the staff and management of Sauce, Sullivan's, Swig, The Corner and Water Buffalo.

Feedback counts

Nothing makes me happier than to run into guests downtown or to receive email feedback from our loyal guests. They almost always blissfully recount their latest experience at one of our restaurants or bars. Recently, one comment has been sticking out in my mind and honestly bothering me quite a bit, that this phrase: "Jeez, we tried to get into Water Buffalo for dinner, but there's no way we were going to wait so long", and they usually continue "must be nice to be so busy, congratulations". I typically thank them and recommend that they contact me directly if they are in need of a table. But then a good friend confided in me, saying "no way I'm calling you for a table, c'mon seriously, who would do that?". Holy cow had I been wrong? Is what I thought was a nice gesture may have been making things worse? I decided to take action.

I called Open Table, the company that handles our reservation system and spoke to them about rearranging our policy for reservations for groups smaller than 8. I trust their input because they handle so many restaurants systems throughout the country and I knew they could help. So, we've shifted some things around and lifted some silly regulations on times that lots of people ask for. Now, 7pm on a weekend night is always going to be a tough table to get a reservation for simply because Water Buffalo is primarily a walk-in style restaurant, but we've made space for a few reservations earlier and later in the evening.

You can check availability here:
Availability link at Open Table

If you don't happen to find your time slot open, please give us a call 414-431-1133 and let us know you're coming in, we'll do our best to minimize your wait time.

Finally, thank you for the feedback and keep the honesty coming, you can always email me directly from the front page at:
WaterBuffaloMilwaukee.com

The 1 hr wait and outdoor dining?

Angie and I stopped in a new steakhouse in New York last night just after 8 o'clock to find a one hour wait for a table. At first I thought it was a conspiracy as the hosts looked quite familiar to me, almost like those guests that just stop in for a bite and are disappointed to find a wait for a table. Honestly, it wasn't that bad, we struck up conversation with a Chilean wine exporter who had just been in Milwaukee two weeks ago and met a NYTimes reporter doing a story on cocktails. The hosts were courteous in letting us know when we were getting close to our time and it helped to ease the pain of the wait. All in all it was a nice refresher for what its like to wait and how it should and should not be be handled.

One more thing, we were STUNNED to find people still eating outdoors this weekend. That, ontop of how packed in people are willing to be in NY when dining out was quite surprising.

New Fall Menu Items at Water Buffalo

The season's change brings about some new menu items at Water Buffalo as we add more comfort food with a twist, a Po Boy sandwich, new daily dessert specials and we even pass some food savings along to you in a lowered price for the wedge salad. We certainly hope that you enjoy Chef Frank's newest creations, try the Lasagna, it's my favorite.

Download the pdf of our new menu here:

New Items available starting Sunday November 4th.

Holiday Parties

Tis the season and space is going fast, but you'd be surprised that some big days are open on the calendar with no one specific commitment in place. If you're still in the process of putting your event together, take the couple of minutes to fill out our request form here to get in the mix. These days everyone is shifting around times, dates and venues so you never know what might be open. For those of you who loved the space as Swig, I think you'd find that it is still quite appropriate as Sullivan's for a group gathering and we can do food from any of our locations in that huge kitchen. So, just give a click and I'll get back to you within the day.

Once more, that's downtowneventplanning.com

Halloween

Sauce staff had some fun dressing up for Halloween this weekend.
Note to self: kitchen staff should be told not to wear a costume that might inhibit their ability to actually see!

I'll try to get some pictures up soon as the Water Buffalo, Sullivan's and Corner staff are done having fun participating through the 31st. If you'd like to have some fun yourself, dress in a costume on Wednesday night and your first drink is on us at Water Buffalo. Just print this blog entry. Hope to serve you soon.

A new look

As our businesses have grown it began to feel like we needed a new look for our blog where we could report on all happenings across our group. I hope you find it entertaining or at least intriguing. Thanks for all your support and continuing to following along.