MKE DINER

Tiki spot the Love Shack opening in Walker's Point

Carol Deptolla
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Drinks at the Love Shack will be served in tiki mugs, like this shark mug. The Love Shack opens June 24 at 106 W. Seeboth St.

With tiki drinks, island-themed food, modern decor and a riverfront patio, the restaurant and bar the Love Shack debuts to the public on Saturday at 106 W. Seeboth St.

The restaurant — next door to Screaming Tuna, at the confluence of the Milwaukee and Menomonee rivers — also has a mezzanine lounge called the Rhum Bar.

The Love Shack takes over the space vacated by Wine Maniacs on the River wine bar. Besides palm trees inside and out, the remodeling to turn the site into a modern tiki lounge brought large mahogany doors with custom handles, LED-lighted tiki torches and a 20-foot-tall volcano constructed of backlighted panels along the restaurant's south wall.

The custom-made handles on the 20-foot mahogany doors at the Love Shack, 106 W. Seeboth St.

 

The menu for the Love Shack, a sister restaurant to Black Sheep wine bar and restaurant in Walker's Point, is by Black Sheep chef Adam Pawlak.

Its 12 items include pork meatballs with roasted red pepper, sticky rice and avocado cream; steamed buns filled with braised pork, shrimp or beef; seared scallop and crisped Spam with mango and radish salad; vegetable or salmon poke bowls; and melon salad with roasted red pepper and citrus vinaigrette. Prices are around $15 or less. 

Shrimp skewers with sticky chive rice, one of the dozen menu items at the Love Shack.

 

The bar is squeezing all but one of its own fruit juices (aside from passionfruit) and making syrups for the drinks, said co-owner Wesley Shaver. Cocktails include classics like the Painkiller and Piña Colada, and new house drinks such as the house grog (banana liqueur, Goslings Gold, Cruzan 9 spice, lime, grapefruit, honey syrup and Bittercube Mahalo bitters). Cocktails are $10, with group drinks $20.

The Rhum Bar will have its own cocktail list; the six drinks ($9 to $15) include one based on the Mai Tai and named for the founder of Trader Vic's, the Polynesian-themed restaurant chain with roots in the midcentury tiki craze. The Rhum Bar also will pour flights of the rarer rums it stocks. 

The Rhum Bar has its own second-floor deck for up to 20, where patrons can order food, although it's designed for socializing. The first floor also has patio seating, for 40. Capacity indoors on the first floor is 70; upstairs, it's 28. 

The Love Shack's owners are Shaver, Michael Sorge and Gary LaCourt. Sorge and Shaver are partners in Black Sheep, 216 S. 2nd St., which they bought in 2015.

Hours will be 4 p.m. to midnight Monday to Thursday, 2 p.m. to 1 a.m. Friday, 11 a.m. to 1 a.m. Saturday and 11 a.m. to midnight Sunday. 

Reservations will be accepted; to contact, (414) 897-8392.

The Love Shack is on Facebook, Instagram: TheLoveShackMKE, Twitter: @TheLoveShackMKE. The website is under development at love-shack.com.

The Love Shack, 106 W. Seeboth St., goes lighter and brighter than dimly lighted tiki bars traditionally do, an owner says. The patios have riverfront views.