Blame a New York-inspired bagel craving for Allie Boy's success
Staci Lopez’s craving for a good bagel is something Milwaukee can be thankful for. When she couldn’t find them here, it became the impetus for Allie Boy’s Bagelry & Luncheonette, 135 E. National Ave., the business she’s built with her husband, Ben Nerenhausen.
Bringing together the couple’s fine dining influences and family roots, the menu features hand rolled bagels and schmears, bialys, lox prepared in-house, and Lopez’s family recipe for matzo ball soup. While the everything bagel is hands-down the bestseller, the menu also highlights local and seasonal ingredients with small-batch specials that consistently sell out. Since opening in the Harbor District in 2020, they’ve added a patio with fireplace and opened seating as they move to expand upon their original luncheonette and deli concept.
Allie Boy’s Bagelry & Luncheonette is open 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Thursday through Sunday.
What’s your background? What brought you to Milwaukee?
Ben: Our story transcends multiple countries and locations. I grew up in Wisconsin until I was 8. We lived in Oshkosh, Ripon. My parents were public school teachers. My dad was starting to get a little antsy with getting stuck in Ripon for the rest of his life. Looking for a midlife adventure, they wound up searching for overseas jobs. …
They took jobs in Pakistan. So at 8 years old, that’s where we traveled. We did two years. They liked it so much, extended for a third year. … They then wound up taking jobs in Cairo, Egypt. We had a family powwow, decided we’d like to do that, and I was there for all of middle through high school. That’s where I graduated.
My parents stayed (overseas) for 23-24 years total. At that point, I was going to University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, transferred to Madison, took a year off to figure things out. I got into cooking and started thinking about it more seriously. I wound up looking for cooking schools, settled on California Culinary Academy, a Le Cordon Bleu school. … I had an opportunity to work at Meadowood in St. Helena in Napa, a two Michelin star restaurant. I was part of the team that helped them achieve their third Michelin star, which is exciting.
St. Helena is only five to ten thousand people, it is also where the Napa Valley campus for Culinary Institute of America is, and coincidentally my wife, Staci, was there. … There is only one bar in town, and we met at Ana’s Cantina. … The rest is history. We started dating there.
After three years in Napa we were looking to move on. We had a mutual chef friend looking for help in Princeton, New Jersey, Scott Anderson. When it is time to move on, you reach out. He was opening a new restaurant. You weren’t in a big city, but you were close, 45 minutes from Philadelphia and New York but a small town feel still. After Napa that was still something we were looking for, not wanting to live in a huge city.
We opened Mistral in Princeton. ... My folks were retiring and moving back to Wisconsin. It became appealing to move closer to home and start a family.
What did you learn about the community here in Milwaukee? What made this the place to open your own restaurant?
Ben: After working for other people so long you realize what you like and don’t like. We had a laundry list of things, and moving to Milwaukee afforded us the opportunity. We spent two years here doing boots on the ground research. We came to the city with a couple concepts, not sure if any would fly.
I knew Justin Carlisle from Ardent. He’d done a guest chef dinner in Princeton, New Jersey, and he provided me with a job (here) right off the bat.
The industry was very welcoming. That was one of the things that struck us as a value we appreciated, how close-knit everyone was here. That was something we hadn’t felt elsewhere.
How did you come to open Allie Boy’s Bagelry & Luncheonette?
Staci: It was definitely always a staple part of my diet, not only being from New York, half my family is Jewish. It was always part of daily meals. When we first moved here, every weekend I found myself craving bagels. You don’t realize what you’ve got till it is gone. Being in the Midwest, the land of no bagels, our thought was to revive the deli movement. Bagels are such a big part of that on the East Coast. That clinched the deal for us, mostly because I needed bagels every day.
Ben: And this building. I think had we found some cavernous monstrosity with 3,000 feet, we might have gone a different route, but we found this cute space.
How did the timing of opening the restaurant impact your approach?
Ben: It forced our hand a bit, changing our menu. It was very much supposed to be a more sit-down luncheonette place.
What should people know about the space and what to expect now?
Ben: We’re in a big transition period, trying to figure out how to do what we were originally planning. … We’ve built a great following of people who know us as to-go and bagel sandwiches, but personally we’d like to see it get back to the sit-down concept. Trying to get there and not alienating our followers and people who have come to love us over the past few years is challenging. The patio with the fireplaces has proven popular, even on the coldest days.
Tell us about your drinks and beverages. What can people expect?
Staci: We’re not known for that, so introducing that option has been slow going. We like to feature a lot of different beers. We don’t have our taps yet, but we showcase beer from the surrounding area, Milwaukee, into Minnesota, Michigan. We make our own Bloody Mary mix, that you can have a virgin if you want. Wine has been pretty popular. People can add mimosa kits, and that’s been pretty good for people to grab and have when they get their food.
What drives your approach?
Staci: One of our biggest philosophies is move with purpose. We’re very much of the mindset of opening things in stages and seeing if they work. … Nothing is set in stone, aside from our flavor.
What’s your bestselling item?
Ben: Our everything bagel. It is also the most time-consuming one to make. We kind of shot ourselves in the foot with that.
Staci: We made it too delicious!
You’re also making some of the sausages and other staples in house?
Ben: We go through so many breakfast sausages I’d have to have a full-time person making those, so we use Boar’s Head. Any of the specialties like the kielbasa, the merguez, the pastrami, we do all of that in house.
The lox, we bring in whole salmon every week. They cure for a week in an herb salt cure, and they’re brushed and air dried. We try to stay true to some of our fine dining teachings and principles.
Hand rolled means what when it comes to bagels and your business?
Ben: We like the hand rolled for a couple reasons. One, the dough is such an evolving thing from day to day. You have to make little changes based on humidity and if it is raining outside. … We have real people making these, people who work really hard to put it together, getting here at 2 or 3 a.m. to start baking …
I wouldn't say we’re New York style. We make bagels our way. We’re in Milwaukee, we’re using local flours, local water, and those aspects of Wisconsin are going to inherently reflect on a different product.
You have menu staples, but there are also some blink and you’ll miss it items. Tell us about those.
Ben: We do run sometimes too many specials. That is us having fun. We have one batch maybe, and well we have it till it's gone. Like this past week, we did pretzel bagel pull apart buns and sliced Nueske ham. Everything sold out in the first hour. We doubled it the next day and it sold out even earlier.
Tell us about the matzo ball soup, which is always on the menu. What’s the inspiration for your recipe?
Ben: That is all Staci. I’m not even allowed to make them.
Staci: It is something that has been in my family for a long time. Matzo ball soup was a staple. The recipe we use here is a combination of many recipes I’ve seen over the years through family and friends. For me it was just something we had to have on the menu, whether we were affiliated with being from New York or Jewish, that’s a luncheonette and deli staple. We make it fresh every day.
Table Chat features interviews with Wisconsinites, or Wisconsin natives, who work in restaurants or support the restaurant industry; or visiting chefs. To suggest individuals to profile, email psullivan@gannett.com.
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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Allie Boy's Bagelry & Luncheonette began with owner's bagel craving
