Good Afternoon ALRC Members,

We are Jack Sosnowski and Steve Weber, and we represent the Freiburg Gastropub at 2612 Monroe Street.  You gave our application for a liquor license for this address your consideration at the last ALRC meeting and were unable to recommend it for passage to the City Council due to a number of concerns brought forth shortly before the meeting by several concerned members of the neighborhood. Although we were disappointed, we understood your position, and realized we had work to do with community members if we had any hope of entering into the neighborhood with our new business proposal.  

Previous to the last ALRC meeting, we had what appeared to be, a very successful neighborhood meeting at Wingra School with approximately 25 interested neighbors.  An up and down vote was put forth - and it appeared that there was unanimous support for our proposed restaurant plan.  So we were surprised, and unprepared, for the amount of negative feedback that was discussed at the last ALRC meeting.

Since that meeting, we have had another large public meeting, approximately 60 people came to this one.  We've also met with smaller concerned citizen groups, and we've worked hard to establish our desire to enter the neighborhood as responsible business owners.  We have made ourselves available via email, text, phone, and meetings 24/7, to discuss the concerns of the residents near and around our proposed new business.  We have addressed the two major components of dissent among the residents, which were parking and the back patio, as well as other minor issues such as deliveries, customer noise, and garbage.  I only say that these last three were considered minor by the majority of neighbors, because at no point was it suggested that these items were "deal breakers" to us entering the neighborhood - just concerns that we needed to address.   The first two however, were "deal breakers".

In response to the concerns about the first two items, Jack and I amended our application to NOT include the back patio in our development of the property at 2612 Monroe Street.  This was never meant to be in our original build-out, and was not part of the business plan for opening.  It was an afterthought that we felt we might want to consider someday, as we knew the process of obtaining permission to do a patio would require substantial neighborhood input for approval.  So the patio is 100% off the table for now, and in the future.  In response to the parking issue, we have secured the parking lot at the LSM Clinic, one block away from Freiburg Gastropub. After many discussions about valet vs. monitored lot, it has been decided that the monitored lot is the most successful way to alleviate the largest amount of additional street parking in the area.  We have also proposed plans and ideas for deliveries, noise, and garbage that have been acceptable to the neighbors most immediate to our location.  

Due to our involvement with the community, and our absolute commitment to resolving the issues put forth by our new neighbors, we believe that we now have considerable support for our new project on Monroe Street.  In consideration of this, we ask that you reconsider our application for a liquor license at 2612 Monroe Street and recommend to the Council that the license be granted at the next Council meeting.

We appreciate your time and consideration in this matter, and value the responsibilities that come with being a member of the ALRC.

Sincerely, 

Steve Weber & Jack Sosnowski