Curtis Grace and Keith Washington outside their Biggby Coffee location ahead of its November 2024 opening at Red Arrow Park in downtown Milwaukee. The coffee shop, along with Biggby’s Franklin location, closed March 8.
Two Biggby Coffee shops in the Milwaukee area have suddenly closed.
One of the shops is at Red Arrow Park in downtown Milwaukee and the other in Franklin, at 7700 S. Lovers Lane Road. Both were owned and operated by local franchisees Curtis Grace and Keith Washington of Cream City Ventures LLC. The Red Arrow Park location opened in November 2024, replacing a Starbucks that had operated there for nearly 20 years.
The closures were announced late Sunday night in identical posts on the shops’ respective social media accounts:
“With very heavy hearts, we share that the Biggby has officially closed its doors. This shop was so much more than a place to grab coffee. It was a place where mornings started, where familiar faces came through the drive-thru every day, where conversations were shared, and where a community was built one cup at a time.”
Asked for additional details regarding the closures, Washington, in an email to BizTimes Monday morning, said “the locations were required to close by the franchisor and March 8th was our final day of operations. It’s been disappointing for our team and our customers because we truly enjoyed serving the community in both Franklin and downtown Milwaukee.”
“I can share that we’re grateful for the customers and employees who supported the Franklin and Downtown locations. It was a great experience serving the community and we wish everyone the best moving forward,” Washington wrote. He declined a request for an interview.
Grace and Washington, who are Milwaukee natives and longtime friends, brought East Lansing, Michigan-based Biggby Coffee to the Milwaukee market when they opened their first location, in Franklin, in 2021. Following the closure of Starbucks at Red Arrow Park in in November 2023, Milwaukee County Parks selected Biggby as Red Arrow’s new food and beverage operator.
In an interview ahead of Biggby’s Red Arrow Park opening, Grace and Washington told BizTimes they were working toward a goal of one to two store openings in southeastern Wisconsin per year. However, plans for a third area location, in Cudahy, never materialized. The operators also had a shop in St. Charles, Illinois, which closed in September 2024.
In addition to their franchise operation, Grace works as an officer and branch manager for U.S. Bank and Washington is a real estate broker and owner of Milwaukee-based real estate firms Washington Investment Group and Boardwalk Realty.
Since its founding in 1995, Biggby Coffee has grown to more than 450 franchise locations in 13 states, including 11 locations remaining in Wisconsin. They include two in Sheboygan, one in Waukesha and one in Wauwatosa.
