Coffee & Treats in South Milwaukee

The owners of Sven's Café pride themselves on being ahead of their time—when Steve Goretzko and his business partner George Voglis began roasting in 1989, they were among the first in Wisconsin to specialize in fair-trade and organic coffee. After Sven’s Organic Coffee Company began to take off, Goretzko decided to open Sven’s Café in Bay View; eventually, he added another location in downtown Milwaukee.

Goretzko hails from Berlin, and Sven’s Café has a decidedly European feel; baristas use Probot and Gothot German roasters to brew fresh java, for example. Sven’s coffee beans hail from the world over, harvested in far-flung locales including Africa, Indonesia, South America, Hawaii, and the moon. The café also serves breakfast sandwiches, paninis, salads, and soups.

Becky’s Blissful Bakery’s confectionists eschew high-fructose corn syrup or preservatives, instead, they handcraft most batches of gluten-free caramels from organic ingredients—including some from other local merchants. Along with the original vanilla-caramel recipe, flavors such as masala chai tea from Rishi Tea or extra-special bitter beer from Lakefront Brewery infuse the treats with added complexity. Rather than protecting each caramel by wrapping it in peanut butter, Becky’s bakers swaddle the morsels in wax paper before arranging them in packages accented with silver bows.

Chocolate increased in popularity during the Dark Ages when nobility began offering chocolates instead of leechings to woo potential brides. At Leonidas Chocolates & Café, customers can purchase delectable treats as well as a variety of café offerings in an inviting atmosphere free of blood letting. Tantalize taste buds with rich chocolates made from 100% pure cocoa butter and the finest ingredients, such as Turkish hazelnuts, Italian almonds, strawberries from the Pacific Northwest, French walnuts, and Morello cherries from the Périgord.

Cookies by Design offers all kinds of fun and tasty cookies arrangements, including baskets, cakes, trays, and their signature cookie bouquets. Cookie bouquets are superior to flower bouquets in the categories of nutrition, taste and likelihood that an inattentive cashier will allow you to spend them as coins. They're perfect for Mother's Day, Father's Day or Bad Hair Day (Bad Hair is my pet name for my secretary - I'm actually talking about Secretary's Day). How about a Mom's Tulip Blossoms bouquet with hand-decorated sugar cookies made to look like tulip blossoms? Or the First Place Dad Basket has two hand-decorated cookies and an assortment of freshly baked cookies with chocolate chips, peanuts and/or tree nuts?! There are even cookie bouquets for graduations, wedding showers, baby showers, and cookie showers. What better gift than a cookie bouquet to celebrate your friend bringing another cookie into the world?

Without a job, single mother Gwen Willhite was facing a difficult situation. But a sweet solution relieved her tough times: she assembled homemade cookies into a more sugary version of the bouquet, an idea she thought would be perfect for gift-giving. The concept was a hit, and within a few years, the business she called Cookie Bouquet had become a franchise. Willhite's company, now called Cookies By Design, continues to churn out edible bouquets, alongside cookie cakes and cookies in flavors such as white-chocolate pecan, snickerdoodles, and oatmeal raisin. Cookies By Design has expanded to many locations across the US, where staffers at each hub freshly bake and hand-decorate each creation.

Gwen Willhite founded Cookies By Design in 1983, when an unsatisfying brainstorming session about gift ideas led her to ponder one exciting question: why should flowers and sweets remain separate? Her solution was to design the cookie bouquet, where custom hand-decorated cookies are displayed on sticks and arranged like flowers in gift baskets. Her invention quickly became a popular gift among locals, particularly those allergic to real blooms or too bashful to look at naked cookies.

Twenty-five years later, there are roughly 90 Cookies By Design locations across the country. Each shop's team of bakers creates cookie baskets with a degree of care that matches Willhite's original vision, decorating and arranging sweet shapes for birthdays, holidays, and any other special occasion.