Downtown Milwaukee restaurants see lackluster business during RNC: ‘Would have just closed my doors’

As the Republican National Convention took over downtown Milwaukee this past week, restaurants and bars were hopeful of the economic impact hosting a big event could bring to the city. 

Milwaukee doesn’t host big events like the Super Bowl or other events that showcase the city, so this was set to be a first of its kind as nearly 50,000 people descended on the city. Still, some restaurants just outside the hard security perimeter of the convention didn’t see the business they were hoping for.

“Hindsight is always 20/20, but knowing what I know now, I would have just closed my doors and let everybody have a vacation,” Brent Brashier, owner of Doc’s Smokehouse in Milwaukee, told the Washington Examiner.

Brashier said that original maps of the security perimeter did not make it seem like his restaurant would be blocked off, but accessing his restaurant ended up requiring a bag check.

“We really tried to make everyone feel welcome, but unfortunately, it’s just very difficult to get here,” Brashier said. “It’s a bummer when you see all these people walking up and down the street.”

“I’ve been here for almost eight years, and you know, anecdotally, the people that I talk to, no one’s really having a very good week,” Brashier said, noting that restaurants within the hard perimeter were having a good week business-wise.

One restaurant down the road, Major Goolsby’s, had its own dedicated entrance and exit from the security perimeter.

“Secret Service guys were pretty forward with me and said, ‘Hey, you guys represent kind of an odd problem for us.’ They did leave an exit gate that would have gone from the red restricted zone into our zone,” Kirby Wachniak, the general manager of Major Goolsby’s, told the Washington Examiner.

Wachniak said his restaurant called some restaurants in Cleveland, Ohio, the host city for the 2016 RNC, to get a better understanding of how things would go. He said Cleveland restaurants said it was “well worth it,” for them to stay open. Wachniak asked if visitors could out drink Wisconsinites, or if they drink as much as Wisconsinites do on a Green Bay Packer Sunday, and he was told to “lower his expectations a little.”

Many Wisconsin bars were given special permission to stay open late until 4 a.m. during the RNC. Still, foot traffic from local residents seemed to be lacking.

“We’ve had absolutely zero local customers. Everybody left town,” Brashier said, noting many Milwaukee residents who work downtown were told to work from home during the convention.

A local coffee shop noticed the same lack of regulars.

“It feels like all the locals have escaped,” said one coffee shop manager who asked not to be named for this story. The manager staffed up for the convention but found the extra shifts were not needed.

“I was definitely prepared for more,” the manager said.

Vendors at the Milwaukee Public Market, a major draw for tourists that features specialty foods and small restaurants, told the Washington Examiner on Thursday their foot traffic had been down.

“It’s pretty dead,” said Autumn North, the manager of On the Bus, a vegan restaurant in the market.

In a sign of new business, the Mississippi delegation hosted a breakfast on the second floor of the market. Otherwise, all three establishments noted that law enforcement helping out with convention security was a large portion of their business for the week. Brashier said 90% of his business has been law enforcement officials, giving thanks to the Greensboro Police, Tennessee State Police, and Secret Service for dining in. 

Major Goolsbey’s gives a 50% discount to law enforcement in uniform, so Wachniak said the restaurant had been busy for that reason as well.

“We’ve had Capitol Police, we’ve had D.C., we’ve had Homeland Security, we’ve had a ton of people from Virginia,” Wachniak said. “[Law enforcement] started bringing their patches in and stuff and all the servers are collecting them.”

At Major Goolsby’s, the Virginia-based Cornerstone Group booked the restaurant all four nights of the convection, so Wachniak was grateful for that. But at Doc’s Smokehouse, a national media company that was set to host events there backed out at the last minute.

“They had a contract to buy the whole space for the entire time. You know, we spent months. I met all their requests; I brought extra data in and all this stuff, and then they just canceled,” Bashier said. He also told Milwaukee’s NPR that the restaurant set up a beer garden and printed banners reading “Welcome GOP.”

“I don’t know if they got wind of how difficult it would be to go in and out, pulled out, or whatever,” Bashier said. “The maps that were released by the host committee aren’t accurate to what’s actually closed.”

Still, both Brashier and Wachniak were thrilled with the potential to showcase their city. 

“Anything that’s good for the city is typically good for us, and I’m still not upset with it,” Brashier said when asked if he was looking forward to the event coming to town. 

“Hopefully, maybe some of these people will come back and say, ‘Hey, we really, actually want to see the city and come back and visit us some other time, because Milwaukee is an amazing city,’” Brashier continued.

In 2020, the Democratic National Convention was supposed to be held in Milwaukee but was mostly moved to a virtual format due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Brashier joked that business during the RNC was up from that of the virtual DNC in 2020.

“The bright spot is that we’re up on our sales from the 2020 DNC,” Brashier said.