Both Ends Of Silver Spring Drive Are Making A Play For Dinner This Fall
"I think we got a little cute with the naming of that space," Adam Powers told the WFB Buzz in August. "We call it the lounge. Now, we just call it a restaurant. That's what we are."
Powers is co-founder and CEO of The Argo, the music venue in the old Fox Bay Cinema Grill at 334 E. Silver Spring Drive. Eight months after opening, he said the restaurant side was "slower than we'd like." Five weeks later, the venue launched a new menu. Two weeks after that, Sendik's opened its rebuilt store at the other end of the street, with a full-service restaurant on the second floor.
So this October, both ends of Silver Spring Drive's business district are trying to become the place where Whitefish Bay eats dinner. The WFB Buzz has written that whenever the topic comes up in the village, residents ask for more places to eat, especially along this stretch. The two biggest projects on the street are now answering that request from opposite corners.
Both projects trace back to the same financing plan. In April 2025, The Daily Reporter covered the village's proposal for Tax Increment District No. 3. The district was proposed to cover about 7.13 acres and to support two projects together: The Argo, from New Land Enterprises, and a rebuilt Sendik's Food Market.
Village president Kevin Buckley explained the order of events. Getting the Fox-Bay Theater running again had been a main goal of the earlier district. Once The Argo started moving forward, "weeks later, Sendik's expressed their intentions to rebuild their store," and an overlay district made sense. The plans proposed a $500,000 development incentive for the theater and $660,000 for bike and pedestrian improvements around the new Sendik's.
The two halves opened nine months apart. The Argo's first musicians took the stage on Dec. 5, 2025. Sendik's opened on Sept. 23, 2026. This fall is the first season with both open at the same time.
The Argo describes itself as three businesses under one roof: a music venue, an events space and a restaurant. The music side has gone well. By late July, Powers counted 72 shows and was on pace for about 150 in the first year, well past the original goal of 100. The restaurant needed more neighborhood regulars, even with a menu first built by Dan Jacobs, a five-time James Beard Best Chef: Midwest semifinalist.
The fix arrived on Wednesday, Sept. 9. As OnMilwaukee reported, chefs Bailey Troyer and Isaac Bahn now have more say over the food. Troyer has cooked at The Argo since opening day. Bahn, the chef de cuisine, previously cooked at HaiSous, Avec and Obélix in Chicago and at Birch in Milwaukee. The new menu is a gastropub lineup with some influence from Bahn's Korean heritage. It includes cheddar-scallion focaccia, a K-Town Philly, galbi-marinated steak frites and kimchi carbonara. The classic burger and the Friday fish fry stayed on.
In the same report, Powers said the goal is to make The Argo "a place the North Shore thinks about for dinner, not just when they're coming to a concert." The restaurant and lounge open Wednesday through Sunday at 4 p.m. You don't need a show ticket to eat there. Some nights cost nothing extra at all. The venue runs free live jazz on Wednesdays with donation-based dance lessons, plus trivia, free movie nights and happy hours.
Sendik's has been at Lake Drive and Silver Spring Drive for nearly eight decades. The new two-story store takes over from the original store, which was built in 1949. The new building went up on the eastern part of the site, where a one-story office and retail building used to stand, so the old store could stay open during almost all of the seven-month project. That ended on Aug. 23, when the old store closed and was torn down to make room for a new 119-space parking lot. At the Sept. 23 ribbon cutting, Buckley declared that "our month-long regional nightmare of Sendik's not being open is over."
The new store is roughly 95,000 square feet. The ground floor has a burrito bar, a sushi counter, a salad bar, a pasta bar and a sandwich station. There are eight checkout lanes, four more than the old building had.
The dinner side is upstairs. A mezzanine built with wood from trees cleared off the site leads to the second floor. Up there are glass-walled rooms for making mozzarella, making fresh pasta and decorating cakes. There's also general seating and small community rooms you can rent. The mezzanine also holds Tudi's Bar and Restaurant, named for the nickname of the owners' father, also named Ted. BizTimes described the menu as scratch-made sandwiches, heavy appetizers, pastas, burgers and pizza. The pasta and mozzarella made in the glass rooms are supposed to end up on Tudi's plates.
The latest reports don't confirm that Tudi's has opened. On grand-opening day, co-owner Ted Balistreri told BizTimes it was "slated to open next week." On Sept. 29, the WFB Buzz still called the opening "imminent." The plan before opening was for the restaurant to close with the store at 9 p.m. Balistreri said that could change depending on demand.
Most of the corner is done. As the WFB Buzz put it on Sept. 29, "the store is open, the lot is striped, and traffic has started to settle into its new rhythm." Here is what is still on the list as of that report and the Journal Sentinel's Sept. 18 preview:
The street work around the store is already in. The Journal Sentinel reported that the village used more than $3 million in tax-increment financing and bonding for bump-outs, flashing beacons and stormwater work. Public Works Director Matt Collins said special care went into making the area easy to cross on foot and by bike.
With both ends rebuilt, the blocks in between are where change will show up next.
One storefront has already turned over. In the village's May 2026 strategic planning report, 322 E. Silver Spring Drive was listed as the former Mixed Bag MKE, which "closed in 2026," with the space being marketed. By July, Whitefish Bay Books had a soft opening there, and its official grand opening began Aug. 18. The owner is Karin Werner, who practiced law for 25 years. Her mother ran a used bookstore near Seattle for 30 years, and Werner did her homework behind its counter. She looked at Cedarburg before choosing a storefront she already walked past every day. Her dog Duke is in the shop most days. She plans to be open Tuesday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and may add Sunday hours around the holiday gift season.
Two other storefronts were still in progress as of the same May report. At 601 E. Silver Spring, the former Stone Creek Coffee, a lease had been signed with a hair salon the report didn't name. At 401 E. Silver Spring, the former Yellow Wood, village staff had heard from several possible businesses but had not been told of a signed lease. Those updates are from spring, and either space may have changed since.
Two Halloween events land four days apart this year. Here is how the street lines up:
| Stop | Address | When |
|---|---|---|
| The Argo Restaurant & Lounge | 334 E. Silver Spring Dr. | Wednesday through Sunday from 4 p.m. |
| Whitefish Bay Books | 322 E. Silver Spring Dr. | Tuesday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. |
| Sendik's Food Market | 500 E. Silver Spring Dr. | Open now; Tudi's upstairs announced as imminent |
| Great Pumpkin Festival | Old Schoolhouse Park, 5240 N. Marlborough Dr. | Oct. 28 through 31, 6 to 9 p.m. nightly |
The pumpkin festival starts on a Wednesday, which is also one of The Argo's free jazz nights. All four festival evenings fall in the dinner hours that both ends of the street are now trying to fill.
If the changes on Silver Spring have you thinking about what your own corner of the village is worth this fall, Elissa Berkoff is happy to talk it through over coffee, with no pressure. Let's connect: get your instant home valuation.
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