Wauwatosa's Alterra rose from a blank slate

Building Alterra at Wells and 68th Street, which opened last weekend, gave the coffee purveyor a chance to express itself.

"This was an opportunity to create exactly what we wanted," said Alterra co-owner Lincoln Fowler in a statement.

"For us, we obviously approach all of our spaces differently," Scott Schewebel, the company's marketing director, said this week. "This is our first-ever, purpose-built cafe only. We've built new before, but they've always been combination buildings," with a roasting facility, and in some cases, other tenants.

"We do have some consistent themes when we're designing a space — we're always trying to blur the lines between inside and outside, and encourage people to pass through and enjoy both." It's a feature also found in Wauwatosa's other new venue — the BelAir Cantina at 68th Street and North Avenue.

Garage-like doors in the porch area at Alterra have been open this week. With its high, cantilevered roof, it has a breezeway feeling, like you might find in the tropics. The design strives for a similar aesthetic to other Alterra buildings, but with its own personality, Schwebel said.

"We kind of wanted to make it this amazing little artful building. It has two distinct spaces. It has kind of the more traditional masonry structure, and then it's got the shed, which we just think is cool." Schwebel said they will keep those garage doors open "as much as we can" as the seasons change. With a fire place and fire pit, some warmth will be provided. On the coldest days, with the garage doors shut, the space will be heated, he said.

A collaboration

The building is a collaborative creation of Alterra staff, architect Chris Socha of Kubala Washatko Architects, and husband-and-wife artists Joe and Janice Niedzialkowski, who live in Cascade, a tiny village in Sheboygan County. Both of them "have been a part of helping create our experience from the beginning," in 1993, Schwebel said.

It was their inspiration that set the tone for the building — "their creative vision, paired with Chris (Socha)."

Joe Niedzialkowski pointed out that Alterra has used garage doors before, notably at its building on Prospect Avenue, where the doors, now replaced by glass, were part of a loading dock for an earlier use of the building.

Niedzialkowski calls himself "a sort of miscellaneous kind of designer...a fill-in-the-the-blanks sort of guy." He designed coffee bags earlier in the company's history. The building designs are "a real big group effort (with) a lot of people involved, throwing out ideas."

A house full of things

He said his input ranges over "everything from the layout and look of the cafe, down to the details. It could be signage. My role is sort of, if you walk into a cafe, and you look around at what is there, what you're looking at is something that I'll have looked at and at least input on, from the wall finishes to the materials to the cabinets, to the facades of the cabinets, to the chairs, as an example."

Socha, and Alterra staff, of course, also have great input.

Niedzialkowski said his work isn't limited to ideas. He made brackets that hold the lights that illuminate outside signage, helped install cabinets and counters, did metal fabrication for outside features, designed and helped create the awnings, worked on condiment stands — "really all over the place. It's hard to describe in less than a few paragraphs," he said with a laugh.

His house fills with Alterra projects, he said. His wife does a lot of colors and finishes for Alterra, and he and his son and brother-in-law built and installed a wall of storm windows that separate the shed from the rest of the cafe.

The Niedzialkowskis are not on Alterra's staff, but freelance artists who are kept pretty busy by Alterra, he said.

Beer on the menu

Another innovation in the new Alterra is the appearance of beer on the menu. An Alterra in Madison was the first of its cafes to introduce beer.

But it's not just any beer — a brew created by Alterra's director of coffee, George Bregar, and its head roaster, Shawn Bigelow, who are home brewers. The beer will be commercially brewed from their recipes, Schaebel said. The beer includes Cortado Imperial Stout, the ingredients of which include coffee.