Fiddleheads Coffee Roasters is coming out of its pandemic shutdown with plans to expand with at least four new locations in the area, including a cafe it will build on North Avenue in Wauwatosa.
That new cafe, with a design influenced by the new socially distanced world, would replace a vacant camera shop Fiddleheads bought this week at 8807 W. North Ave., said Ray Marcy, one of the company’s owners. That could open in spring, he said.
“Out of this, if anything, our pace of expansion has accelerated, and our thinking about what our future looks like has accelerated,” Marcy said, adding, “I wouldn’t say it’s all been fun.”
Fiddleheads had to shut down its brick-and-mortar locations in spring because of the pandemic. About 75 employees were laid off but continued receiving paychecks during the shutdown. Marcy said company leadership took the requisite few days to deal with the depression of closing down, but used the remaining weeks of downtime to plan for the future.
“As a management team we said, 'do we want to just survive, or do we want to go big?'” Marcy said. “We started talking about what would it mean to go big. We went from being a little depressed because we were shuttered, to creating a new energy.”
Fiddleheads leadership revamped their marketing plan and wrote a new food menu for its cafes, for example. Since reopening its cafes to customers this summer with new safety precautions against Covid-19, Fiddleheads volume of transactions has exceeded 90% of where it was pre-pandemic, Marcy said. Its 75 employees have been called back, and new locations mean it could exceed 100 employees by year’s end.
While leaders already intended to expand beyond its original six locations, Fiddleheads pushed ahead when opportunities arose through the pandemic. Construction is underway in Shorewood for a new cafe to replace a location that recently closed in Bayshore. Another is set to open by January in the first floor of BMO Tower in downtown Milwaukee. Fiddleheads also continues to pursue plans to move and renovate a historic former train depot in Brookfield’s historic village area for a new cafe.
Wauwatosa was a priority community for a new cafe before the pandemic, and discussions were already underway with the previous owner of the North Avenue property, Marcy said. After the pandemic struck, the owner decided he’d rather sell than lease the property to Fiddleheads, Marcy said.
That $500,000 sale was finalized this week, according to state records. Newmark Knight Frank brokers Brian Vanevenhoven and Kevin Schmoldt listed the building. The previous owner and seller was John Mathie, who owns other properties on that same block.
The Wauwatosa cafe’s design anticipates precautions against the spread of disease will be a regular, rather than temporary, phenomenon. Galbraith Carnahan Architects LLC in Wauwatosa is the project designer.
“Our thinking is to not only be Covid-sensitive now, but it’s our belief we’ll get into mini-Covid environments in the years to come, be it severe flu seasons or Covid reappearing on a lesser scale,” Marcy said. “We see it as something that will be enduring, and we want to be able to flex with that.”
Interiors will be designed for tables to be spaced to maintain social distancing or, if that’s not needed, to accommodate more tables and people.
The Wauwatosa cafe will maximize its outdoor seating. The lot is big enough to maintain 20 parking spots while also creating a large patio, Marcy said. That patio would have a lot of greenery and environmental elements, including trees and water retention systems. It could be partially enclosed and warmed in the winter, he said.
Marcy said the building itself could be one or two stories tall. Its first floor would have large doors opening onto the patio. A second level under consideration would have an outdoor terrace with more space for tables.
“It will be a great cafe inside, but from an outside patio, outside environment standpoint will be very pleasing to the eye,” he said.