A look at closed Milwaukee restaurants that we miss

Vegetarian dishes like this veggie combo (served with Turkish coffee) were the staple at Abu's Jerusalem of the Gold, which operated on Milwaukee's east side from 1979 to 2011.

Yinka Adedokun presided over the African Hut on King Drive from 1994 to 2008.

Jelani Nation, left, and Rodney Bly, two of the four partners of Bean Head Cafe, fill orders at the King Drive coffee shop, which operated from 2002 to 2004.

Bosley on Brady, 815 E. Brady St., had sidewalk seating as well as indoor dining, along with a lively appetizer-centric happy hour

One of Milwaukee's premier supper clubs, the Boulevard Inn operated at 4300 W. Lloyd St. from 1946 to 1992, then moved to Cudahy Tower from 1992 to 2003.

Patrons have breakfast and conversation at the Coffee on a Sunday morning in 1985. The restaurant and coffee bar operated on Downer Avenue from 1975 till 1998.

C. 1880 opened at 1100 S. 1st St. in Walker's Point in 2012. The fine-dining restaurant closed in March 2018, with chef-owner Thomas Hauck citing “changes in the Milwaukee restaurant market.”

Bryce Clark and Sal Sanchez opened Cempazuchi at 1205 E. Brady St. in March 1999. The innovative Mexican restaurant closed in 2017.

Chez Jacques, one of Milwaukee's longest-running French restaurants, closed its doors in October 2016.

Sanford and Angie D'Amato opened Coquette Cafe, the casual, French-flavored restaurant in the Third Ward, in 1999. It was sold in 2010, and it closed in 2018.

Chef-owner Peggy Magister opened Crazy Water, a finer-dining spot with a contemporary American menu, in April 2002 at 839 S. Second St. The restaurant was closed in the summer of 2020 and converted to a Mexican restaurant, La Dama, a week later.

Elena Salas, fourth from left, owner of Don Quijote, Milwaukee's only Spanish restaurant, poses with her family, including (from left) Cesar Salas, Guillermo Salas, Samantha Salas, Elena and Tabatha Salas, at the restaurant's South Second Street location. Opened on Downer Avenue in 1996, the restaurant closed in its south side incarnation in 2008.

Patrons look over the menu at the Pfister Hotel's English Room, shown after it reopened following extensive remodeling in 1977.

A tea shop moved into George Watts & Son's terra cotta shop on Jefferson Street in 1929. The Watts family took it over in 1951. In 2016, the family closed down the store and the tea shop.

Grenadier's, at 747 N. Broadway, typified fine dining during its 29-year run. The restaurant closed in 2004.

Izumi's Restaurant owner Fujiko Matsu, sits in the dining room of her Milwaukee restaurant in 2000.

John Ernst Cafe, shown after it abruptly closed in May 2001, had claimed to be Wisconsin's oldest restaurant. Serving traditional German food in a fine-dining atmosphere, it had operated in downtown Milwaukee since 1878.

Patrons hang out in John Hawks Pub, 607 N. Broadway, in 1974. The downtown bar and restaurant opened on Broadway in 1972, and moved to first-floor space in the then-new 100 East office tower on Wisconsin Avenue in 1990, becoming one of the first restaurants on the downtown RiverWalk. It closed in 2016.

La Perla, the popular Walker’s Point Mexican restaurant known as much for its mechanical chile pepper ride as for its food, operated at 734 S. Fiffh St. from 1995 to 2016.

Meritage, with a menu driven by seasonal, regional foods, opened on Vliet Street in 2007. Chef-owner Jan Kelly closed the perennial Top 30 restaurant in 2016 when she moved to California.

Milwaukee Ale House, a restaurant and taproom that became a prime destination on the Milwaukee River in the Third Ward, was a fixture on Water Street from 1997 to 2022.

Mimma's, the Italian restaurant that helped turn Brady Street into a dining destination, opened in 1989 and lasted until 2016.

The owners of Mykonos Gyro & Cafe, Tina and Fotis Kambouris, stand inside the restaurant not long before the downtown diner closed for good in December 2018.

Diners enjoy an evening at Nanakusa, a popular Japanese restaurant in Milwaukee's Third Ward, in 2007. The fine-dining restaurant operated from 2001 to 2011.

An impressive view of the Milwaukee skyline was part of the experience at Roots, the locally sourced restaurant at 1818 N. Hubbard St. The restaurant operated at its prime Brewer's Hill location from 2004-'12.

The Social, an upscale but casual New York-style restaurant in Walker's Point, moved from a spot on South Second Street to much larger quarters at 1170 S. First St. Opened in 2009, it lasted in its new home until 2009.

Shown in 2003, Richard Regner, owner of Soup Brothers at 209 W. Florida St., talks about how his restaurant is jokingly compared to the "Soup Nazi" of "Seinfeld" fame. Regner operated Soup Brothers from 1999 to 2022.

The dining room at Swig, 217 N. Broadway in Milwaukee, had a row of Edison-type lights and an exposed brick wall.

In this 1969 photo, a lone car parks in front of Toy's in the Chinese restaurant's last location in downtown Milwaukee, on N. King Drive near Kilbourn Avenue. Toy's first opened downtown in 1904, then moved to a six-story building on Second Street before the King Drive location was built after World War II. It closed in 2002.

Triskele's opened at 1801 S. Third St. in 2008.

Trocadero, 1758 N. Water St. in Milwaukee.

Patrons raise a glass at Tulip, the Turkish restaurant in Milwaukee's Third Ward, in this 2008 photo. The restaurant closed in 2015.