Changes at Waukesha Clarke Hotel, restaurant
ByExecutive Chief Dean Schmitz is leaving the kitchen of the Black Trumpet Restaurant and room prices are dropping dramatically at the Clarke Hotel, owner Drew Vallozzi said.
With Schmitz departure, the last influence of Andy Ruggeri, Vallozzi’s former partner, on the restaurant/hotel operation in downtown Waukesha is gone.
Vallozzi said he has an entirely different vision for his boutique hotel. Its once high-priced restaurant will feature affordable pasta dishes, thin-crust pizza and an expanded kids menu. For $9.95, it will offer a bottomless pasta bowl. An all-you-can-eat Friday fish fry is $13.99.
Single-bedroom suites for non-commercial accounts have dropped in price from as much as $300 a night to $139.
The new menu will launch Saturday night.
Great move! This will attract more “families” to the restaurant downtown with the fairly affordable pricing. It will also bring more walk traffic and the other businesses will benefit as well. Our family will certainly head on over soon.
Hmm…this doesn’t sound good but if it makes the restaurant more popular then I am for it. Its obviously a sign that downtown Waukesha cannot support high end fine dining yet. The kids menu, while a turn off for some, might actually lure people in. Just looking at all of the families downtown for Friday Night Live and the Art Crawl maybe has revealed that in order to be sucessful, restaurants have to be family friendly.
Will 6 million dollar hotel and family food joint cover the overhead for the taxes it owes the TIF, the BID, the hotel tax and pay off the construction leins against the hotel?
Sounds like salary cuts to shave overhead.
It comes as no surprise. I do wish them well.
It’s too bad their original plan didn’t work out but I for one am happy that they’ve made their prices more affordable. The downtown needs more nice restaurants that I would be willing to go to.