It took nearly two years for
The Commodore – A Bartolotta Restaurant to come to life, reviving an early 20th century lakeside resort that was most recently home to Weissgerber’s Seven Seas Restaurant for 42 years.
Now that the new fine dining and events destination on Nagawicka Lake
is finally open to the public, there's the underlying pressure of living up to the hype while meeting demand. Excitement around the project -- and
The Bartolotta Restaurants' entry into the Lake Country market -- has been building since plans for The Commodore were announced in August 2022. Delays in the opening timeline only heightened the anticipation. And that's why, for operator
Paul Bartolotta, first impressions are especially important.
"It's all about reputation management, about delivering on the promise. It isn't about volume," said Bartolotta, who is chef, owner and co-founder of the Milwaukee-based hospitality group. "It's about just getting to know the guests that are coming in and that have waited and been patient, and then taking care of them so that they understand that this is their home, that this is their place."
Within 24 hours of opening reservations on Monday, The Commodore was fully booked for the next two weeks. Calls then started coming in from people asking if they could come in for a drink at the bar or sit outside on the terrace. At least in the restaurant's opening weeks, walk-ins are accepted only if there's enough capacity to "manage the quality" of the experience, said Bartolotta in an interview with BizTimes on Wednesday.
By capacity, Bartolotta doesn't mean physical space -- there's no shortage of that at The Commodore. The 27,000-square-foot venue has a 140-seat dining room on its main level and a 250-seat event space upstairs. There's also a lower level that will eventually house an exclusive members-only social club, dubbed Club 1902. Plus, the 3.9-acre property has three designated outdoor event spaces as well as a couple of outdoor seating areas for the restaurant. But the option to dine al fresco is not available to diners quite yet -- in favor of maintaining a controlled environment for staff and showing off the restaurant's impeccably decorated interior.
Leading up to Wednesday's public grand opening, The Commodore's opening team of 85 employees had time to prepare. The restaurant held a number of "practice parties," running dinner service for the construction crew as well as friends and family.
"We need some guinea pigs. We need to practice cooking, ringing orders, making drinks, working out the kinks so that we don't do it at the expense of a guest, because obviously, what people come to expect from Bartolotta is excellence in service and hospitality," said Bartolotta.
The upper-level event space quietly opened weeks ago and has already hosted 25 to 30 events, including a birthday party, a wine tasting, some weddings and a couple corporate events. The interest in event bookings at the property has been "unbelievable," said Bartolotta, adding there are very few Saturdays still available for weddings next summer.
"That doesn't mean we couldn't do Fridays or Sundays or a dual wedding once we get everything fully set up, but we're pacing ourselves," he said.
The restaurant's public grand opening on Wednesday was marked by a ceremonial ribbon cutting and remarks by Bartolotta leadership, property owners and developers
Jay Franke and
David Herro of HF Hospitality Group, and Delafield's new mayor, Tim Aicher.
Shout outs and thank yous were given to project designers Pete Damsgaard and
Jackie Wolke of Cedarburg-based Groth Design Group as well as general contractor Fond du Lac-based C.D. Smith. Those firms were tapped by Franke and Herro -- who themselves are Lake Country residents with a home on Pine Lake -- after they purchased the Nagawicka Lake property in 2021, not long after Seven Seas closed.
It was a move inspired by Franke's vision for preserving and continuing the decades-long history of what had become a cornerstone of the Delafield community: it's one of the few waterfront properties that hasn't been taken over by residential development and remains publicly accessible. The partnership with The Bartolotta Restaurants came later, after vetting six other potential operators, said Franke.
"The seventh person walked through the door ... and it was kismet," he said of Paul. "It was true creative energy out of the gate. Someone who understood the concept of what we wanted to do, who understood the massive scale of this property -- as Paul has mentioned its Grain Exchange on top of Harbor House on top of Ristorante -- but then also I was looking for someone who had the detail, who had the eye and who was a visionary, and Paul is that person."
The project turned out to be quite the undertaking as decades of wear and tear and shoddy infrastructure work required essentially stripping the massive building down to its studs and reinforcing it with steel and other durable — and expensive — materials. That level of investment and effort is why Bartolotta, as operator of The Commodore, sees itself as "custodians of this property for the next 100 years," said Paul Bartolotta.
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