Radix Fermentation has been looking for a home for a long time, and now, owners Kayla and Adam Thomas have found one just two blocks from their house.
“We've been talking, by now, through two mayors, two city administrators, and now we got it,” says Adam, as the three of us stand inside the now-empty Cudahy Fire Station 1, 4626 S. Packard Ave., which is the future home of Radix Fermentation.
Somewhat amazingly, once the brewery opens, it will be the only brewery between St. Francis and Faklandia and Kenosha’s Rustic Road and Public Craft Brewing (unless Racine’s Littleport reopens, as has been suggested).
“We're excited,” says Adam. “We live here, we see the neighborhood kind of changing, we see younger families coming in.”
And those folks want places to go in their own community.
Kayla and Adam started Radix in 2020, four years after they returned to Milwaukee to help open MobCraft Brewing, where Adam worked as a brewer and Kayla as director of operations until MobCraft closed last November.
In 2021, they did an alternating proprietorship with MobCraft that allowed them to share the space and, at times, use MobCraft’s huge 30-barrel brewhouse.
Though MobCraft gave them a combined 20 years of brewery experience – on both the brewing and business sides – they, like others, were daunted by the size of the brewery, with its 30-barrel brew system and 60-barrel fermenters.
“It’s too big,” says Kayla. “You’ve got to get your distro game on to make that volume worth it.”
Adam adds, “those days have passed long ago.”
So, they kept a lookout close to home, seeing a hole in the market in the south suburbs and wanting to be close to home, too. They checked out a couple places in Cudahy and South Milwaukee.
“We live here,” Adam says, “we’d like to work here. People are excited, so that's good.”
“We were stopped by a new neighbor, just moments before you came,” says Kayla, “and he was like, ‘Oh, I'm so excited’.”
Thus, when news emerged that Cudahy would replace its two fire stations with a single new one on the site of Station 2, the Thomas’ kept a close eye on the future of the Station 1 site and by 2023 made it known to city officials that they were interested.
Cudahy’s first firehouse was located in the old City Hall at 3617 E. Layton Ave., built in 1902.
By the dawn of 1958, however, City Hall had moved into a new building (in December 1956) and the city had sold the old one to Cudahy State Bank, which planned to demolish it for a parking lot to accommodate customers at its branch next door.
In the meantime, the city was renting the firehouse space back from the bank.
As the community was growing, the city also determined it needed a modern firehouse to accommodate its 10 full-time firemen (whose work was aided by 20 volunteer firemen).
Thus, the city purchased two lots on the northeast corner of Plankinton and Packard Avenues – which had homes belonging to the Bach and Lawler families – for $45,500 where they planned to build the new station, which would house the department’s three fire apparatus and the city ambulance.
In January 1958, Cudahy announced that a new $135,000 firehouse – expected to have a useful life of 50 years – would be built.
Modernist architects Grassold & Johnson – who had also designed the new City Hall – were hired to design the firehouse, which was to be built by contractor August Priegel.
The structure – which ended up costing $165,000 – was complete by the end of the year and on Dec. 15, 1958 it was put into service.
Twelve days later, Cudahy Mayor Vincent Totka led a ribbon cutting ceremony that was followed by an open house so residents could check out the new digs.
Inside was a large apparatus floor with three overhead doors. In the southwest corner was a dispatcher’s booth. In back were the quarters for the firefighters, with separate sleeping rooms.
A bathroom, locker room and shower room were located in between.
In the southwest corner of the building was a large kitchen and to the east of that – separated by an entrance – were the offices.
On the lower level was a space converted to a gym, as well as storage and boiler spaces.
Station 2, at 3115 E. Ramsay Ave., was built in 1968, a decade after Chief Sigmund Bukowski had expressed the need for a second facility.
In 2018, the decision was made to replace the two aging stations with one modern one.
That began, according to a city website, “with a facilities assessment by Zimmerman Architects. That assessment, followed up by assessments completed by FGM Architects in 2021 found that the city's existing two stations were out of date functionally.
“The deficiencies found in the old facilities included shared bunk spaces for firefighters, lack of facilities for female firefighters, lack of appropriate office space and insufficient areas for equipment decontamination and training. Additional structural issues were also found with Station 2.
“FGM Architects examined the renovation of the existing two stations in order to bring the facilities up to current standards and compared that with constructing a new facility. It was determined that the more cost-effective approach was to build a new station on the site of Station 2.”
The plan called for a new two-story, 22,000-square foot building that would have four apparatus bays, first floor offices, storage areas and training room, with living quarters upstairs.
The new station was dedicated on Oct. 5, 2024, clearing the way for the sale of Station 1 to Adam and Kayla Thomas.
They plan to convert the apparatus floor into the Radix taproom.
After removing a wall at the back of the space, they’ll build a bar there with about 20 seats.
A cooler will replace the old showers and bathrooms behind that wall and new public bathrooms will go into the current locker room space.
The little dispatcher’s shed will be removed.
The former offices will become Radix’s offices and the kitchen will, for now, sit idle until they’re ready to look at finding an outside operator to convert and run it.
At the back, separated from the taproom by a low wall will be the production space. However, in the short term Radix will continue to contract brew elsewhere, while fermenting and aging (Radix does a lot of wild, mixed culture and spontaneously fermented brews) on-site.
“We have so many friends and connections in the industry,” Kayla says, with Adam adding, “we're going to get more produced by our friends around town.”
“If I find a good brewhouse at auction, though, I'm going to snap it up,” Kayla vows. “They’re so much (money). I’m mad, because we saw (a 15-barrel) one go in Illinois for $1,200. I just missed the auction. 1,200 bucks!”
The plan is definitely to add a brewhouse at some point, but there’s a lot of work to do (and plenty of expense) in the meantime.
For now, the old sleeping quarters at the back will remain as they are. The same goes for the lower level, though ultimately, if they can make changes required to meet code, they may open up part of it.
Maybe for event space, or, as Kayla says, with a smile, “a speakeasy type little bar. I think that would be fun.”
Outside, there’s parking out back and some landscaping to be done along the south side of the building, along with a bit of paint and other work on the exterior along Packard Avenue.
Patio seating is in the plan, but that requires different permitting, so it won’t happen right away.
When I ask about a projected opening date it’s immediately apparent which Thomas is the brewer and which is the operations expert.
“Ideally, August, probably,” Adam says without hesitation, eliciting a surprised, “wow, you’re still saying August?,” from Kayla.
“I doubt it,” she adds. “Uh-uh. I say November at this point.”
But they both agree that in the meantime they plan to investigate what they need in terms of permits to sell some beer.
“There's a chance we can do some pop-up sales,” Adam says. “Set up shop, do a Saturday bottle sale or something like that. Just monthly type things to get some interest and sales.
Kayla, the director of operations, adds, “we’re just trying to get this (taproom) done and have some money coming in.”
“The goal is to get some beer flowing,” says brewer Adam, “and we'll make changes as we go.”
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.
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 be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
