Tag: coffee

My Kind of People

March 15th, 2026

I was at The Daily Bird a couple days ago. I had to drop off somebody who had an interview at Meta House a few blocks away. I didn’t know how long the interview would take, so I wandered into the café to get a cup of joe and a breakfast sandwich. I also brought a paper tablet with me so that I could write a snail mail letter to a friend in Pennsylvania. I like doing that sort of thing.

The Daily Bird is a scruffy, working-class kind of place. It’s totally not Starbucks. It’s not much like anything else either. Years ago, that coffee shop was called the Fuel Cafe. That particular business was also rather informal. The Fuel Cafe had a strong motorcycle vibe to it (the owners of Fuel sponsored the annual “Frozen Snot Ride” at the tail end of the Wisconsin winter). Daily Bird keeps a bit of the biker motif, but the proprietors lean heavily into the theme of drug prevention and recovery. That makes total sense to me, and it is timely.

Daily Bird has all the old tables and ancient wooden booths left over from the Fuel Cafe. The only real difference now is that the new owners painted damn near everything, both inside and out, in a godawful bright yellow. I will grant you that the color scheme makes it easy to find and recognize the coffee shop. A person can see it from blocks away. It’s definitely an upbeat hue. It’s hard to be depressed in the café. However, I think it might be rough on a person who is already wound tight. I have to believe that they got the paint for free. I can’t imagine paying money for gallons and gallons of lemon-yellow paint.

Next to the counter is a table covered with brochures and pamphlets. On it there are free samples of Naloxone (Narcan), an opioid receptor antagonist. Narcan can save somebody who has overdosed. There are also free fentanyl test kits. And there are pregnancy tests available. As I mentioned, this is not a typical café. The owners are concerned with wellbeing of the local community in a very hands-on sort of way. I think it’s kind of cool.

I had to use the restroom halfway through my mug of coffee. I noticed quickly that there was no mirror in the room. Instead, written above the sink in bold, black letters was this:

“You look GREAT! Now, wash your hands!”

Sage advice.

The coffee was good. The breakfast sandwich made fresh, and I appreciated that. The music played in the coffee shop was eclectic. The baristas probably picked it out. I took some time to observe the folks who came into the place. I suspect that they were almost all locals, denizens of the Riverwest neighborhood. I bet that the customers all have interesting stories to tell. They looked intriguing. They looked real. In other places, say in a Starbucks, people sometimes come in dressed to impress. Not so at The Daily Bird. It seemed obvious to me that the clientele has no desire to put on a front. They are who they are and that is kind of refreshing.

A portion of the customers got a coffee and immediately went out the door and lit up a cigarette. Keep in mind that it is still winter here in the north country, and the weather was cold on the morning I visited the café. I have to assume that at least a few of them were down to their last two acceptable addictions, and they were making the most of the opportunity to feed their need. So be it. Caffeine and nicotine usually don’t result in a fatal overdose. The long-term effects are a different story.

I sat for a while and then I had to pick up the person with the interview. I had finished my letter and my coffee. I enjoyed the time at The Daily Bird. I plan on coming in again. They are my kind of people.

Back on Brady Street

August 25th, 2025

Asher starts kindergarten at Tamarack Waldorf School on September 3rd. This is obviously a big deal, both for Asher and for Karin and me. Going to school will open up a whole new world for Asher. He will get to know his teacher, and he will make friends. He will have to learn how to follow a schedule. He’s never had to do that before. Asher has mostly done what he wants when he wants, and for the most part we, as his guardians, have been okay with that. That all changes in a little over a week. He is going to have to get up early, eat breakfast, get dressed, and go to class for the morning every morning. I’m almost certain he will balk at this, at least until he gets comfortable in his class and starts looking forward to doing things with the other children.

I will mostly likely be driving Asher to class each morning. I am a morning person, unlike my wife. The Waldorf school is close to downtown Milwaukee, which means Asher and I will have a half hour drive to get him to class by 8:00 AM each day. Traffic will suck. My wife did this kind of thing with our own kids twenty-five years ago. We know the drill. Since Asher will only be there until 12:30, it is kind of iffy as to whether it is even worthwhile for me to drive back home once I drop him off. I might as well stay in area around the school while he is in class.

Tamarack is located on Brady Street on the lower eastside of Milwaukee. It’s close to Lake Michigan. Tamarack uses the old school building from St. Hedwig’s Catholic Church. The steeple of St. Hedwig’s towers over the other buildings on the street. It is the anchor for the neighborhood. The school building is ancient. It has classrooms with high ceilings, tall windows, and hardwood floors. The school has a feeling of solidity and durability. If you listen closely, you can hear the voices of previous generations of children laughing and yelling in the halls. For me, there are ghosts in the school. Even if I am surrounded by the new parents and their kids, I can still feel the presence of the people who taught and learned in that place a quarter century ago. The school contains echoes of the past, but it is also vibrant with the energy of the latest generation. It’s like life is coming full circle.

Brady Street is an interesting neighborhood. It always has been. Early on, it was an immigrant community of Germans, Poles, and Italians. St. Hedwig’s is named after a Polish saint. There is still an Italian grocery store (Glorioso’s) a few blocks away from the school. Peter Sciortino Bakery is across the street from Tamarack. During the 60’s and 70’s, Brady Street was a hippie hangout. Now, it’s a narrow road lined with bars that cater to a mostly hipster crowd, young people with money. But the neighborhood is still quirky. The community is very LGBTQ friendly. The area is ethnically diverse. Brady is a good street for walking and browsing. There is a paradoxical sense of permanence and simultaneous upheaval. It’s a neighborhood that is alive.

I came to know that area in the 1990’s. I used to go down the block from the school to the Brewed Cafe for coffee. Sometimes, I went there by myself, and sometimes with my wife. Brewed is not there anymore. They closed down a few years ago, and now the place is a Brazilian coffee shop. The new coffee house is nice enough, but it’s not Brewed. The Brewed Cafe had this scruffy, working-class, antiestablishment atmosphere. Once a person managed to get through the front door, which never really opened and closed very well, they would see numerous pamphlets and posters advertising upcoming shows by local bands or political events or art exhibits. The front counter was small and cramped. At busy times of the day, customers lined up almost all the way back to the door. Once at the counter, a person could order coffee or other beverages. They had beer (it’s Wisconsin-almost every establishment serves beer). There was a tiny kitchen in the back where people made vegan sandwiches and other dishes. The folks working at Brewed all had more than usual number of tattoos and piercings. I’m sure they worked for minimum wage, but they got to pick what music was played in the coffee shop.

Even when there were only a few customers, Brewed seemed crowded. Space was at a premium. The tables were small and wobbly. If you ordered coffee, you got that immediately. If you ordered food, it showed up eventually. The walls were covered with works by local artists. The bathrooms were microscopic in size, and the walls were plastered with graffiti and stickers for bands that I had never heard of. The place was clean, but cluttered. Over the years, it had accumulated a variety of objects that somehow lost their purpose and meaning, but remained there, nonetheless. Brewed was oddly comfortable. Going there for coffee or lunch was kind of like going into somebody’s home.

I miss that place. I will have to find another hangout on Brady Street.