Lombardi Brewing Company, which announced in spring that it was taking over the former City Lights Brewing facility at 2200 W. Mount Vernon Ave. in the Menomonee Valley, says it's ready for a soft opening.
In a social media post Thursday afternoon, the brewery's owners wrote, "Exciting news! We have everything in place to open our doors for a soft opening! We have identified the leaders of our service team and will make a determination tomorrow on exactly what our soft opening will look like.
"If you are so inclined, planning for a Friday, Saturday or Sunday visit next weekend, it seems more than just likely, that our doors will be open! Maybe a later open on Thursday even! Stay tuned for the opening announcement!"
The post also noted that the transformation of the space is not entirely complete. Passersby will have noticed, for example, that the large sign on the roof of the building still says "City Lights Brewing."
"We are working diligently to transform our space to meet our vision, but that will take some time as it has taken us longer than expected to finalize all of the intricacies of our current situation and investing in the property hasn't occurred at the level we anticipated due to timing," the post notes.
"The inside of the taproom has been updated a bit, but our patio vision won't be started until early 2026."
The brew system is also not yet active and thus Lombardi will be brewing at District 1 Brewing for now in Stevens Point, "as we have in limited quantities since 2021," the post points out.
"Brewing operations are impaired as we work with local trades to bring systems online; and there are other, more complicated issues remaining as well," the post says.
"We feel we will be able to brew when winter arrives, but until we have confirmation on long term repairs, we will rely on other assets in our portfolio to provide beer."
The post notes that Lombardi will remain linked with District 1 in the future.
"This will be a long-term relationship as our lead brewer is also the lead brewer at D1," they say. "He plans to use the two systems to brew beers on for both breweries, based on system capabilities and economies of scale. You will see both Lombardi and District 1 brews on tap for the foreseeable future.
"You can expect a wider breadth of beer styles coming in the taproom over the next two months. We've brewed several beers for Lombardi, however the IPAs are hitting the brew deck in Stevens Point this week as freshly-brewed is imperative with those styles. Don't fear though, we will round it all out as quickly as possible and have plenty of options day 1."
The brewery, founded in 2017, is owned and operated by John Lombardi, Amanda Gethers and Tim Kunze. The Milwaukee location will be its first permanent home.
Lombardi is the grandson of late Packers coach Vince Lombardi.
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. A fifth collects Urban Spelunking articles about breweries and maltsters.
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 been heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
