A micro food hall, Crossroads Collective, aims to revive the corner building at North and Farwell avenues

After a succession of restaurants, the former Oriental Drugs building on the east side is taking a new tack: a food hall of six or seven vendors due in the fall, plus a little speakeasy off the alley.

At 7,000 square feet, Crossroads Collective would be considered a micro food hall, noted Tim Gokhman, director of New Land Enterprises, the development company that owns the building at E. North and N. Farwell avenues. But 7,000 square feet is enormous for a single restaurant by today's standards.

The last occupant, Rosati's Pizza, closed in March 2017 after 16 months in business.

Gokhman is more interested in channeling the spirit and sense of community of the gone-but-not-forgotten Oriental Drugs — properly known as Oriental Pharmacy but immortalized in the "I'm Hooked on Oriental Drugs" T-shirt. The pharmacy and its popular lunch counter, which had its roots in the 1930s, closed in October 1995.

Crossroads' size is about half that of the first floor of the Milwaukee Public Market, which could be considered Milwaukee's first food hall (though it does have some non-food vendors, market director Paul Schwartz noted).

Food halls, unlike food courts, shun national chains and rely on local operators and made-from-scratch meals. In addition to restaurants, they sometimes include shops that sell items such as artisanal cheeses and handmade chocolates. Like food courts, though, food halls have counter service.

They've become popular across the country, with more than 100 standing coast-to-coast, including more than a dozen in New York City alone. Food halls typically range from 5,000 to more than 40,000 square feet.

Gokhman estimates Crossroads will have room for six or seven mini restaurants. He's hired Cordial Consulting, operated by Ardent's chef Justin Carlisle and Dan Frame, to decide which vendors make the cut.

They'll likely choose some new restaurants but also some second or third locations of existing restaurants, Gokhman said in his announcement for the hall.

The developer said he wants to keep the restaurants' start-up costs low. The vendors would share a kitchen, coolers and other such items. To free up space behind the counter for the restaurants, diners would pay for beverages at each restaurant but retrieve them from a communal bar.

A hidden space that will be entered by way of Black Cat Alley behind the building will be a speakeasy, said Gokhman, an idea that came from "Wisconsin Foodie" host Kyle Cherek.

Gokhman contacted Cherek last fall for input, and upon seeing the long, wide service hallway that connects to Black Cat Alley, "I said, 'This just calls for a speakeasy,'" Cherek recounted. He estimated the space at 8 feet wide and maybe 40 feet long.

"Cozy and intimate," Cherek said. "A world unto itself, which is what a speakeasy is."

Gokhman plans to open the food hall in October, and hopes to restore the pharmacy's original floors for the project and incorporate vintage objects from the building, like a couple of old cash registers that were in storage.