Brew Berlin Pub & Grub offers a fresh take on pub food (literally, it's all made on the spot)

Kimberly Mathy of Muskego owns not one, not two, not three, but four businesses.

"I'm a very hard worker," she said. "So, I figured, I'd work for myself."

And, one of these businesses is Brew Berlin Pub & Grub. (We’re going to let you guess where it’s located).

She bought the New Berlin restaurant and bar a little over a year ago. When she took over, she revamped the menu, cleaned, changed the lighting and redid the deck, all while remaining open. 

"It's a very competitive business," she said. "If you lose your clientele base, they find different places to go to. So, you want to keep them in your bar stools."

It's all about fresh

"The menu needed a fresh approach," Mathy said. She hired Gerald Malone, an experienced chef, and he created the new menu from scratch. 

"I like fresh foods, so I try to serve people what I would want to eat," Mathy said. When customers order menu items like cheese curds, walleye or shrimp, it's all hand breaded on the spot. 

"It makes a world of difference, as opposed to doing packaged, frozen foods," she said. 

Customers Matt Ruehle and Renee Henning have taken notice. "They have one of the best fish fries in the area," Henning said. 

"You can tell it's homemade," Ruehle said. They moved just a mile away from the establishment in February, stopped in to check it out and have been patrons since. 

The restaurant serves pizzas with freshly cut toppings, burgers made with Angus beef and wings with homemade sauces.

But, the food isn't the main reason Ruehle and Henning keep coming in. It's "Kim."

"She's very friendly, upbeat and runs a nice establishment," Ruehle said. Henning said the pub is like "Cheers."

"Customers become like friends and family to me," Mathy said. She goes to their parties, has them over and vacations with them. She said she organizes social events like Brewers games, concert outings and Packers parties with free food during halftime, touchdown shots and a Plinko Puck game with prizes. 

Mathy's story

After graduating from Muskego High School in 1986, Mathy attended the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee for psychology. 

"I worked my way through college in bars and restaurants, mostly downtown," she said. 

After graduation, she did social work until her daughter, Heaven Lei Lucas, was born.

After spending 12 years as a stay-at-home-mom, she got back into the hospitality industry. She started an event planning company with her daughter's father called Balloons-2-Move-U and Music-2-Move-U in 2002. "We do weddings, balloon drops, catering, anything to do with a party," she said. 

She also worked for EYES, which stands for evaluate your employees and services. It's a hospitality evaluation service focused on employee honesty, customer service and quality, she said. She took over that business in 2006. 

In 2013, she said she started becoming interested in the Tavern League in Milwaukee. That's the year she bought her third business, a bar called Slurp N Burp Fun Bar in West Allis. 

Unlike Brew Berlin Pub & Grub, which is a restaurant with a bar, Slurp N Burp Fun Bar is a bar with a restaurant, offering more basic bar foods, she said. She took over Brew Berlin Pub & Grub in July 2017.

"I'm a people person," she said. She said working behind the bar lets her still put her psychology degree to use. 

She works about 80 hours a week with her newest venture taking up most of that time. "It's almost like a baby," she said. 

She doesn't even have a TV at home, because she doesn't have time for it. The reason she does what she does is to get her daughter through college and to retire someday, she said. 

Heaven Lei Lucas was a waitress at the pub up until a couple of weeks ago when she left for her freshman year at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. 

Mathy said customers are already asking when she'll be back for a visit. “Her presence is missed,” she said. 

Brew Berlin Pub & Grub

ADDRESS: 19745 W. National Ave., New Berlin

PHONE: (262) 971-9000

WEBSITE: facebook.com/brewberlinpub

PRICE RANGE: From $3 for a cup of homemade soup to $19 for a large specialty pizza

HOURS: 3 p.m. to midnight Monday through Friday and 11 a.m. to midnight Saturday and Sunday

WHEELCHAIR ACCESSIBLE: Yes