"The Bees Knees" Opens Downtown; Historic Building Restoration Described As "Complete Vision"

WAUKESHA — The Bees Knees, a cocktail-focused lounge at 412 West Main Street, opened this month inside a three-story brick building that had sat mostly vacant since 2019, completing a restoration co-owners Mark and Carrie Ostrowski describe as a "complete vision" eleven months and roughly $610,000 in the making.

The Ostrowskis, who previously ran a catering business out of Pewaukee, said the building's original 1902 tin ceiling, pressed-metal cornice, and second-floor transom windows had been hidden for decades behind drop ceilings and a since-removed vinyl awning. Restoration crews uncovered the tin ceiling in February, patched 40 individual panels, and repainted it in what Carrie Ostrowski called "a period-correct cream, not an off-white, there's a difference and our painter agrees with me."

The Menu

The lounge's name and flagship drink both come from the Bee's Knees, a Prohibition-era cocktail of gin, honey syrup, and lemon that bartenders say has outsold every other item on the 14-drink menu by a wide margin through the first two weeks. Runners-up include the Fox River Fizz, an elderflower gin fizz named for the river four blocks east, and a rye old fashioned the menu lists simply as "the one your dad orders."

Head bartender Dana Okafor said the honey syrup is made in-house in 10-gallon batches and sourced from a Sussex apiary, a detail printed on the menu's inside cover along with the apiary's zip code, "so people know it's not, like, a warehouse somewhere." Okafor said the lounge has gone through 22 gallons of syrup since opening and is already ordering more ahead of schedule.

"It's not a cocktail bar with old stuff in it. It's the building, restored, that also happens to serve cocktails."

— Carrie Ostrowski, co-owner

Opening Night

Councilman Gary Puchalski attended the September 12 ribbon-cutting and praised the restoration's exterior brick repointing, which he said addressed a facade the city had flagged in a 2023 inspection. "I've walked past that building for six years assuming it would eventually just fall into Main Street," Puchalski said. "Instead it has a cocktail called the Fox River Fizz. I consider that a win for downtown."

The lounge seats 58 across a main bar and a smaller mezzanine level added during construction, and reservations for the mezzanine's four booths are booked through mid-October. Mark Ostrowski said the couple had underestimated weekend demand and are now considering Thursday hours in addition to the current Friday-through-Sunday schedule.

The Neighbors

Diane Kowalczyk, who owns the boutique two doors down and has kept a "closing sale, everything must go" sign in her window since March, said weekend foot traffic past her storefront has been "noticeably elevated" since the lounge opened, though she noted the increase has been concentrated on Friday and Saturday nights and has not meaningfully changed her weekday lunch business. She said she has not decided whether to update or remove the sign.

Some early customers reported difficulty finding the building on their first visit, a fact the Ostrowskis attribute less to signage than to downtown's block-by-block one-way grid. "We tell people to watch for the Piggly Wiggly and then not go that way," Mark Ostrowski said. "Half our reservations call from the wrong block at least once."

The Ostrowskis said they have no plans to expand the space further but are exploring a small patio for next summer, pending city approval. Asked what he'd tell the building's previous tenants, whoever last successfully operated there, Mark Ostrowski said he didn't know who that was. "Whoever it was, I hope they'd like the ceiling," he said.