Owner of The Rock, Wave partners with Milwaukee restaurateurs, plans new downtown venue

MILWAUKEE (WITI) -- Mike Zimmerman’s "MKE Sports & Entertainment" has partnered with Milwaukee restaurateurs Jake and Seth Dehne, and together they plan to revamp and open a location on North Old World Third Street.

Zimmerman, in partnership with Jake and Seth Dehne are joining forces to build out exciting food and beverage locations under one flagship, called - 3 Beacons.

The Dehne Brothers have a long and successful track record in managing food and beverage locations in downtown Milwaukee, which include Buckhead Saloon at 1044 Old World 3rd St., Upper 90 Sports Pub at 322 W. State and the now closed Suite Night Club at 1103 N. Old World 3rd St.

Dehnes three locations, along with the existing Umbrella Bar, DiMaggio’s Stone Fire Pizza, Tap Works, and Rock Concessions businesses creates a powerhouse of brands in the food and beverage space.

The partnership will also build out a unique food and beverage solution that caters exclusively to baseball stadiums and other sports catering venues, beginning in spring of 2015 in Rockford, IL (Rockford Aviators) and Kokomo IN, (new Prospect League expansion franchise), which are two professional baseball teams managed by MKE Sports & Entertainment.

“Partnering with Jake and Seth is nearly perfect for us,” said Zimmerman. “They have a proven track record as operators and think contemporary about the space in terms of what customers want and how food and beverage integrates with entertainment venues. It’s a core piece of our business today and we estimate that it will be roughly 50% of our revenues in the future.”

"As a group we have some of the best locations in greater Milwaukee," said Jake Dehne. “Upper 90 Sports Pub is a stones throw from UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena and will play nicely with the MKE Wave and UWM Basketball for pre and post game activities. Buckhead Saloon has been one of Milwaukee's largest nightlife venues for 9 years on Old World 3rd Street, while the Suite location is arguably one of the best around and our new concept will work nicely with Bucks, Marquette, Admirals and other Bradley Center events. As for The Rock's Sports Complex location in Franklin and the other MKE Sports & Entertainment ventures, it becomes a really interesting ecosystem of brands to cross promote and entertain our customers."

“We are not looking to build just one powerhouse brand," said Seth Dehne. “Instead we want to create a bunch of exciting "micro venues" where we can integrate food, beverage and entertainment as one. Suite Night Club didn't fit this core premise so we opted to shut it down. In this space, we are currently building a whole new venue along with Rinka Chung Architecture Inc. (The Moderne, Northwestern Mutual, Drexel Town Square, Pabst Professional Center) that we are very excited about and will unveil in the very near future."

CLICK HERE for more on this story via the Milwaukee Business Journal.