Emerson and I spent a lot of time out of the house today.

We had a lovely lunch at a place we went to on a whim called Grand Café Hollander. We had a whipped feta dish and their mussel specialty dish, both of which were absolutely heavenly.

My turkey burger would’ve been better with some cheese, but it came with a very tasty curry ketchup on it and Emerson’s chicken dish was positively melt in your mouth delicious.

The atmosphere was lively and Dutch themed and we had a great time. It was well worth the trek out to Mequon.

Update 12/26/2025: we were given for this lunch from my grandmother for the express purpose of treating ourselves to a very fine meal, and we had also recently sold our lemon of a car, in case anyone is concerned about us eating out while simultaneously crowdfunding.

OnlineFirst - "Mapping elite tastes along New York City’s gourmet gentrification frontier, 1990–2015" by Will B. Payne:

#localreviews #commercialgentrification #NewYorkCity #geographicinformationscience #foodculture

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0308518X251342927

Alto Infused Seltzer: ✨Mystery Flavor ✨

Okay, so..

As an offering of goodwill in this hellscape trash fire, Zelda brought me a can of a THC infused seltzer beverage.

The aforementioned beverage comes from a local brewery called Eagle Park Brewing. The flavor? Mystery flavor. And boy, did that mystery deliver. The following is a detailed review of this Marvelous Mystery.

I cracked open the can and was immediately greeted by the smell of strawberry. I sipped it, and the mystery flavor did, in fact, appear to be strawberry.

The interesting thing about this THC beverage (and what sets it apart from others I’ve tried) is that I couldn’t taste the THC. Most infused beverages have a rather distinct aftertaste that would not be great for, say, mixing with sodas or syrups, but this one had a very minimal aftertaste. It was also not too sweet, but not too heavy on the seltzer flavor, either. The flavor reminded me of strawberry flavored beers I’ve tried in the past.

Also, there was a fair bit of THC in this drink (10mg THC, 15mg CBD). I would be lying to you if I said I wasn’t a mite elevated right now.

It was great on its own, but if you want to get creative and make a knockout nonalcoholic cocktail, I would pair this with club soda, some mint and orange syrups, and top it all off with an orange and fresh mint as a garnish.

Top notch work, Eagle Park. I’ll be high in the sky for the next while…

-Allēna

#CaliforniaSober #EagleParkBrewing #localReviews #MilwaukeeReviews #Mocktail #NonAlcoholicBeverage #THCBeverage

Praise Be The Italians

Hello, everyone! Lazarus here.  Zelda and I had a really great date last night. We went to an incredible restaurant called Onesto in Milwaukee’s Third Ward. Now, I love food. I love nice food even more. I love Italian food with all of my heart. I grew up with a lot of money and a gourmet chef grandmother who was of Italian descent, the inimitable Rose. So I have rather elegant taste and am quite particular with my Italian food.

This restaurant hit the spot. It reminded me of her cooking and the sorts of places I used to go to when I younger all rolled up into one. I was so happy when our calamari appetizer came out that I started warbling! It was absolutely delicious. The atmosphere was also lovely, the service was amazing (props to the waiter who was incredibly patient with how much Parmesan cheese I wanted on my truly delightful spaghetti Bolognese).

Also, look at these masterpiece MOCKTAILS!

We had a vanilla affogato for dessert, which was also top notch. I used to get affogatos while I was tired from writing essays in college in Maryland with my friends, so I’ve missed them horribly.

We went home happy and half food comatose. Praise be the Italians and their exquisite food. And kudos to Onesto especially. I would highly recommend it to anyone looking to have an intimate date night or a delicious Italian dinner of any kind in a soothing and lovely atmosphere.

So good!

Stay tuned for more magic… ✨🥂

-Lazarus

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Hello, gentle reader. My name is Hannibal. I am the main protector alter of the Ashley system. I see that my colleague Renn reviewed his favorite headshop the other day, and I am going to follow in his esteemed footsteps, though my review will be…how shall I put this? Different. Much different. We’ve lived in Milwaukee for about three years and we’ve eaten at some shady restaurants here in our time, and have heard some bad things from the staff. We’re a system full of social butterflies, and kitchen staff talk. So we have become a clearinghouse for a lot of the local gossip and we know where to frequent and where to avoid. But none of the dirt on the other restaurants compares to a supposedly upscale “speakeasy” in Whitefish Bay, a northern suburb of Milwaukee, Moxie Food + Drink.

Is What You’re About To Tell Me About Moxie Food + Drink Hearsay? Possibly. You Be The Judge, Though.

Much of what I shall tell you we heard directly from one of the kitchen managers at Moxie Food + Drink themself, our ex partner, Zelda. This restaurant struggled from the ashes of a now defunct restaurant owned by the same couple that owns Moxie, Trouble and Sons. Trouble closed due to supposed “staffing issues”, the probable cause of which I shall discuss in a moment. Much of the staff from Trouble transferred to Moxie after Trouble shut down, and the owners are still paying on the building that housed Trouble, and the same staffing issues that plagued them still haunt Moxie, and the owners are cutting corners wherever they can in order to stop this remaining venture from going under. This includes things that will be absolutely illegal if they don’t fix them soon. I’ll cite them in a later paragraph after I discuss the staffing issues.

Now, About Those Staffing Issues…

Word from Zelda has it that the owners are extremely nepotistic and play favorites. If you aren’t their favorite, they bully and undercut you and seemingly try to get you to quit so that they don’t have to pay you unemployment. As a result, there’s a high degree of turnover. If you are their favorite, you can do no wrong. However, the owners are fickle and their favorites can change completely arbitrarily. They’re constantly trying to hire more people, and the pay is horrible because again, they’re trying desperately to keep their business afloat. No wonder they have staffing issues. My sisters in Christ, it’s almost like YOU CAUSED THEM!

Zelda has also noticed that they have a tendency to promote their current favorites and leave the rest of the staff to drown. However, since money is so tight, they don’t even have the money to even support their favorites.

For example, Zelda is one of their current favorites. They work them to the bone. At one point recently, the owners scheduled them for three weeks straight without a single day off. And then when they did finally get a day off, they kept getting called in because the kitchen is so eternally short staffed.

Additionally, the owners asked Zelda to earn their ServSafe certification. They did so, took the test for it and everything. However, the owners still have yet to pay for them to get their official ServSafe certification as promised. It has been several months at this point, and he’s still received nothing.

Now For The Real Fire: Moxie Food + Drink’s Future Federal Labor Board Violations (Assuming They Don’t Clean Up Their Act)

Dearest reader, you recall how I said that money was tight for the owners because Trouble closed down? They’re going to be in heaps of trouble with the Federal Department of Labor if they don’t pay Zelda and Zelda’s co-manager significantly more by July 1 and even more than that by January 1, 2025, per a new rule by the Biden-Harris Administration this year. However, per their contract, they are not eligible for a raise until next February at the earliest.

Zelda is also required to work far more than their contract requires because their co-manager gets even more special treatment from the owners (see: nepotism) and is paid hourly and doesn’t work more than his contract says he should, often leaving Zelda hanging in the process. Zelda is salaried and often works far more than the fifty hour cap that their contract dictates, covering shifts for an already deeply short-staffed kitchen. I am not certain if that is legal or not, but they’re certainly working themselves to death.

What About Moxie Food + Drink’s Food? Is It Any Good?

Eh. I’m not a fan of a lot of Moxie Food + Drink’s menu. Granted, they have to cater to the rather bland upper class Whitefish Bay palate, but seriously, I can only stand about three things on their menu, and two of those things are desserts, which aren’t even made in-house. The other is their short rib, which is actually delicious. So they get points for that, at least. I want to learn to make a better short rib, though. I bet I could improve the recipe pretty easily.

Before you ask about their alcohol, I wouldn’t know. I don’t drink. The system has been sober for about six months. Zelda would know, though. If you see them around, you should ask. They’re a somewhat functional alcoholic in the loosest sense of the term, and they often show up to work late because they’re hungover and drank themself into a stupor the night before. I don’t know if they’ll even get a raise with that kind of behavior, though they seem to be the most competent person in Moxie Food + Drink’s kitchen. Now that is a scary thought..

Conclusion

If I could give Moxie Food + Drink negative stars, I would. The dirt on this place is richer than six feet up a bull’s ass, though. If you have too much money to blow, enjoy bland food, and want a good laugh at an obvious sinking ship, eat at Moxie.

As always, stay tuned for more magic!

-Hannibal

https://opensorceryy.co/moxie-food-drink-an-insider-perspective/

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Hey, everyone! This is your favorite paper pusher once more, Renn. We promised the people variety when we started this blog, so variety they shall have. We’ve written a lot about our Tragic Backstory and our disabilities. While this post should piggyback off of that, I’m gonna keep the whinging to a minimum today. Instead, I’m gonna fucking GUSH. We deal with a variety of weird chronic illnesses that we often have to treat ourselves because specialists take fucking FOREVER to see their patients. As a result, we have a rather tragic nicotine problem and are pro-level stoners. This makes finding a top-quality local headshop a necessity. Our favorite, and in my opinion, Milwaukee’s best headshop, is Closet Classics on North Avenue.

No Conventional Good Stuff? No Problem!

As you probably know if you’ve lived here awhile, conventional recreational marijuana isn’t legal here, and many legislators and lobbyists have no idea what the holdup is. It’s common practice to blame the lobbyists. In the meantime, many headshops supply the people with variations of the Devil’s Lettuce that are legal under the 2018 Farm Bill as a loophole in states where conventional recreational marijuana is not yet legal, like THCA, THCP, HHC, and others – and this is where Closet excels.

And before you ask: no, I was not paid to review this place. Yes, I am indeed high on an edible from this place. I ate one before I started writing, hahaha.

Emerson and Allēna found Closet pretty late one night when she was running low on her Good Shit. Both Lēna and Emerson were thoroughly impressed with Closet’s selection, fair prices, and business practices. She bought a hybrid vape, if memory serves, and when it turned out to be defective, one of the owners gave her an additional vape for no extra charge. That alone earned Closet a new regular customer. PLUS THEY HAD DOGS THERE THAT DAY!

Milwaukee’s Best Headshop, the Prettiest Glass Pieces

We love ogling at their glass pieces when we come in there for our medicine runs, as we call them. Many are handmade, and while many of them are far out of our price range at the moment, they DO offer layaway, which is fucking cool. We could stare at some of these bongs and pipes for hours. They make our very autistic crow brain happy. I talked with the owners about some of them and they said that many are handmade locally. So when you buy one of these very cool shiny objects, you are supporting local artisans as well as these chill as fuck owners.

You know that old question “if someone gave you fifteen grand, but you had to spend it in fifteen minutes, where would you blow it all at”? Truthfully, I’d probably go there and buy all their pipes and a hefty bit of their exotic flower. It’s delicious. Truly Milwaukee’s best headshop.

Speaking of flower…

The Most Delicious THCA In This Fucking Town

We have smoked a lot of weed in our time. Some of it was gross. Some of it was mid-tier. And some was very nice. Rarely, however, has a strain been so delicious that we want to smoke our entire stash in one sitting, and all but one of those amazingly delicious strains have come from Closet Classics. The one other amazing strain like that came from a shop in Delaware, so that one doesn’t really count here.

These strains are STRONG, too! We’ve had shit from here that isn’t even super exotic or expensive that knocked us on our ass so hard we slept for hours. It’s great for our pain and insomnia. They also have THCA edibles that we get for our pain because they’re easier to dose for us.

I am glad I have even a modicum of financial sense because if I didn’t, I would be thousands of dollars in debt due to the deliciousness found in this sacred establishment. I need to ask if they offer the entire store on layaway…

What About Accessibility?

At this point in the post, you’re probably wondering if the damn place is even accessible if you are also disabled like us. And I am here to tell you that it depends. We live pretty close by, so it’s pretty easy to get there on foot for us.

Sadly it isn’t wheelchair accessible, though. On days where we would need our chair, we usually ask Emerson to go grab our order for us. If you use a wheelchair and do not have someone like Emerson in your life, I’d recommend calling the shop to see if you can order something in advance and whoever is working that day meet you outside the shop to give it to you. While we have not tried that exact thing yet, the owners have accommodated other needs of ours and are very kind. It would never hurt to ask with these guys. They don’t bite.

What About Nicotine? I’m Not a Stoner. Is It Still Milwaukee’s Best Headshop?

If you aren’t a stoner, the only thing Closet doesn’t have is loose-leaf tobacco. They have nicotine vapes and pipes, but sadly no loose-leaf tobacco. However, we love the vapes they have and we get all of our nicotine there, too. Their prices are great on the nicotine side of things, as well. We ended up getting a 10,000 puff nicotine disposable vape today for $16 and change – and it makes us laugh because it’s Bruce Lee themed as well as officially licensed by his estate. It’s so random to me that the legal ghost of Bruce Lee broke into the nicotine business, but it never fails to make me cackle.

Conclusion

If I could buy everything here, I would. If I could attain the sheer level of cool that the owners seem to have reached, I would. If you’re disabled and you are looking for pain relief at fair prices from a small business with people who’ll treat you right, go here. If you smoke the Good Shit and like beautiful glass pieces and great vibes, go here. If you smoke nicotine and you want tasty (and arguably occasionally fucking hilarious) vapes, go here. Take this old crazy cripple’s word for it and get your ass to Closet!

-Renn, Master of Paperwork and Ceremonies

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