Sisu Café, the new daytime restaurant of the owners Sabrosa Cafe and Gallery, is now open daily in Bay View.
It serves breakfast and lunch sandwiches and other items including savory pastries, homemade sweet pastries, coffee, soup, salad, and on Sundays, chilaquiles.
Chef and co-owner Frank Sanchez said the counter service restaurant, located at 2121 S. Kinnickinnic Ave. It will slow down its fastest pace for table service brunch on Sundays beginning sometime in August. He’s seeking a liquor license for late-night cocktails.
In the meantime, the café will serve a Sunday special of chilaquiles, with a choice of meat or steak ($12-$16). The Sunday hot meat market has been moved from Sabrosa to Sisso. Brown sugar and bourbon-glazed pork, carnitas and beef barbacoa are $10 a pound, and sides are available.
Sanchez also makes pastries, such as scones, danish and kurvaposti, and Finnish cinnamon rolls. The name of the café is taken from a Finnish word that translates to meaning perseverancea name inspired by the epidemic.
Sanchez’s partner is Robin Perinen, whose heritage goes back to the Finns.
Breakfast items ($7 to $10) include a blueberry yogurt parfait; hot muesli with bacon, ham, and fried eggs on a croissant; chorizo and egg tacos. and vegetable pancakes, a delicious legume popular on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where many residents are of Finnish descent.
Lunch items ($9 to $12) include beef patties, a grilled vegetable pie, German egg salad (with sour pickle) on bread, and sandwiches like cheese joe, grilled tomato cheese, and fried cod baked in crushed barbecue chips. Sandwiches are served with chips, soup, or salads, such as apple salad, cucumber salad, and watermelon.
The café also has fast-paced sandwiches that change daily, such as beef with swiss horseradish sauce or salami and white cheese on a baguette. Sandwiches can be heated.
Customers can take a seat after ordering from the counter. The café assigns letters rather than numbers to display on tables to customers’ orders, accompanied by a Finnish word and illustration, and a bit of a vocabulary lesson.
The cafe has 10 tables and two of the larger tables can accommodate six people. Sanchez plans to create two conversation nooks, with comfy chairs and coffee tables where customers can “knit, read, work, anything,” he said, to continue with coffee, cold brew, tea, or murals.
He said the café will feature outdoor seating soon, but that some key patio items are in demand, like many supplies these days.
Siso’s business hours are 7 AM to 3 PM Monday through Friday and 8 AM to 3 PM on Saturday and Sunday. The cafe premises has parking for customers, online ordering was soon available at sisucafe.com.
The cafe is on Facebook and Instagram.
Contact Carol at [email protected] or (414) 224-2841, or through the Journal Sentinel Food & Home Facebook page. Follow her on Twitter at Tweet embed or Instagram at @mke_diner.