The Lowlands Group announced today that it will start renovations on Café Benelux in Milwaukee’s Third Ward. The restaurant will be closed beginning the evening of March 5 and will reopen with regular breakfast, lunch and dinner hours on March 17.
Updates will include refinished flooring, expanding seating into a new dining space, updating merchandise displays and adding six new draught lines, including a new nitro line.
"Ever since we opened our doors in the Third Ward, Café Benelux has been one of our most consistently busy cafés," says Dan Herwig, director of brand and marketing at Lowlands Group. "Between our unique rooftop deck, the proximity to the Milwaukee Public Market, and everything the Third Ward has to offer, we have seen an amazing amount of traffic over the past few years."
Upon reopening, an updated brunch menu will include authentic "Liège" waffles made with yeasted brioche dough enhanced with pearl sugar resulting in a sweet, rich waffle that’s faintly crunchy from the caramelized sugar embedded within.
"There are only a few places in Wisconsin to taste Liège waffles, and most of them are food trucks," notes Wilhelm Borgstrom, culinary director for the Lowlands Group. "It was important to us that we craft them as authentically as possible, so we imported special Liège waffle irons from Belgium to get the perfect amount of caramelization on the sugar."
Café Benelux first opened in June 2011 and is the latest in a series of Lowlands Group’s grand cafés to be renovated, with its Café Hollander locations in Tosa and on the East side both receiving recent facelifts.
As a passionate champion of the local dining scene, Lori has reimagined the restaurant critic's role into that of a trusted dining concierge, guiding food lovers to delightful culinary discoveries and memorable experiences.
Lori is an avid cook whose accrual of condiments and spices is rivaled only by her cookbook collection. Her passion for the culinary industry was birthed while balancing A&W root beer mugs as a teenage carhop, fed by insatiable curiosity and fueled by the people whose stories entwine with every dish. Lori is the author of two books: the "Wisconsin Field to Fork" cookbook and "Milwaukee Food". Her work has garnered journalism awards from entities including the Milwaukee Press Club. In 2024, Lori was honored with a "Top 20 Women in Hospitality to Watch" award by the Wisconsin Restaurant Association.
When she’s not eating, photographing food, writing or planning for TV and radio spots, you’ll find Lori seeking out adventures with her husband Paul, traveling, cooking, reading, learning, snuggling with her cats and looking for ways to make a difference.
