Daymaker prepares for grand opening
There is a new restaurant in Wauwatosa, and if things go according to its proprietor’s plans, it just might make your day.
Although The Daymaker Café has already opened to customers, it will be celebrating its grand opening on Nov. 7. In doing so, The Daymaker Café, located on North Ave. and 72nd St., will be joining the ranks of Wauwatosa’s fairly populous community of restaurants, though the Café’s founders have already set themselves apart in several ways.
“We make a lot of things ourselves that a lot of places would just buy,” sous chef Justin Eaton said. These include the restaurant’s salad dressings and French fries, made from hand-cut potatoes. Senior Ian Haegele tried the fries, along with the Daymaker’s Tijuana Burger, and was impressed.
“[The burger] was delicious,” Haegele said, “and the fries were freshly cut; they weren’t out of a bag. I’d go again.”
Eaton joined the Daymaker’s team when his friend and previous coworker David Lamb decided to buy what was then the East Towne Café.
A Wauwatosa resident and parent, Lamb hoped to provide good food from a broad spectrum, all reasonably priced. He even added a children’s menu to help connect with the community.
In making the transition from the East Towne Cafe, Lamb and his team aimed to update the space’s look with basic, bright colors. “We wanted it to look like the daytime,” Eaton said.
The Daymaker’s menu focuses largely on hamburgers and sandwiches. They serve a long list of creative and complex variations on the burger theme, showing off the Lamb’s and his staff’s developed skills as chefs.
“We can take your basic ingredients and, knowing what to do with it and how to do it, break [a burger] down and put it back together,” Eaton said.
Opening any small business is hard, and this is especially true for restaurants. The Daymaker, though is looking forward to its official grand opening and the changes that will accompany it. For one, the restaurant will begin opening earlier to attract early-rising breakfast customers.
This being his first business venture, Lamb described himself as excited by the adventure of starting up his own place. An artist in other areas, Lamb sees the Daymaker as a sort of piece of art as well as a friendly neighborhood restaurant.
Senior Andy Petr dined at the Daymaker shortly after it began serving customers. Though it was appar-ent that the restaurant was still putting itself together, he enjoyed the experience.
“They were really busy, but they gave us free sodas for the wait,” Petr said, “and the food was really good, and big.”