Valentine Coffee Expanding, Staying Close to Home

Technically, Wauwatosa is losing a valued business to Milwaukee.

Practically, customers of Valentine Coffee Roasters will find the product no less fresh, since the owners are moving "all of three blocks" and "about 30 feet across the line," co-owner Joe Gilsdorf said.

And the biggest perks for the public are that the business will have much more room to roast that many more fine beans, and eventually will open up for retail sales of fresh-brewed coffee, quite handy to East Tosa.

Gilsdorf said he and husband and wife partners Robb and Virginia Kashevarof have signed a lease for the building at 5918 W. Vliet St., currently the Accurate Cleaners dry cleaning shop. The move-in date for Valentine is Sept. 1.

"There's a lot of work for us between now and then," Gilsdorf said.

An 'accelerated' expansion

Valentine Coffee Roasters got its start in the back room of the headquarters of the Bartolotta Restaurant Group at 6005 W. Martin Dr.

But HSI Inc., the builders of The Enclave apartment complex, which surrounds the property, .

Bartolotta Group decided to move to downtown Milwaukee, but Valentine was committed to staying somewhere on the west side, preferably in Wauwatosa.

"We began our search in Wauwatosa," Gilsdorf said, "but there just wasn't the right space there for us."

"We were already looking to expand," he said. "This just accelerated that search."

Gilsdorf said that David Glazer, Wauwatosa resident and area real estate agent, helped Valentine immensely in locating an appropriate space, first scrutinizing available or upcoming openings in Wauwatosa and then in the area.

Glazer formerly owned the Times Cinema – next door to Accurate Cleaners.

The Vliet street building "has roughly three times the available space we have now," Gilsdorf said.

Initially, Valentine will continue roasting beans for sale in area grocers, specialty shops and restaurants – including many of Bartolotta's – and adding capacity to meet growing demand. Gilsdorf said he has for some time been roasting every day to keep up, whereas a year ago they were roasting only three days a week.

"Absolutely, we're going to stay focused on the roasting end of our business," he said.

Valentine's experts are finicky about flavor

But somewhere down the line, there is a retail coffee shop in the offing, something Valentine has long pondered.

"We'll have sidewalk frontage," Gilsdorf said. "We would be foolish not to open our doors."

There are already a couple of cafes nearby – the on the Wauwatosa side of North 60th Street and Cafe Perrin across Vliet and a few doors east in Milwaukee.

But Gilsdorf did not think a Valentine coffee shop would be overly competitive, out-competed or would oversaturate the area, simply because his concept is so different.

"We would have no intention of following the model of the typical cafe-style coffee shop," Gilsdorf said. "We are not into bagels or muffins or sandwiches, or flavored syrups.

"This would be more of a tasting room. I've worked in the Napa Valley in tasting rooms. This would be something like, an Italian walk-up espresso bar meets Napa tasting room meets pragmatic Wisconsin coffee shop."

Gilsdorf and Robb Kashevarof both have backgrounds in fine wine and developed expertise in terroir, the subtleties of flavor imparted to the grape by local climatic and soil conditions.

Then they decided to apply their skills to coffee.

Needless to say, they are very picky about their beans, and about how their coffee is brewed to preserve and bring out those subtleties.

In Gilsdorf's mind, a Valentine coffee shop would focus on straight-up coffee, with no additives or distractions to mask or mar the uniqueness of the perfectly roasted bean.

Wauwatosa's loss is Wauwatosa's gain

The business district surrounding the corner of 60th and Vliet is turning into quite the hip place, and the addition of a Valentine coffee counter would only add to its growing panache.

Besides the aforementioned Highlands Cafe and Cafe Perrin, Valentine's digs are next to Cold Spoons Gelato Shop on one side and the soon-to-reopen Times Cinema on the other.

Directly across the street is the divine Meritage restaurant, owned by top chef Jan Kelly, and soon to open is Sunnyvale Organics, selling aquaponic produce and fish.

While all of those addresses except Highlands Cafe are in Milwaukee, it amounts to a win for Wauwatosa as well. Having all those upscale businesses anchoring the Milwaukee side of Vliet Street can be nothing but good for the Wauwatosa side, propping up values and investment there.

There are even possibilites that the success of the Vliet Street district can translate into more success for the North Avenue district of East Tosa.

With nearly every storefront on Vliet now occupied with a solid, chic tenant, more innovative business people looking for space in the area – chock full of disposable income – may look to North Avenue.