Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA

Closed 1999

The Disappointed Tourist: Coffee Trader, Ellen Harvey, 2021. Oil and acrylic on Gessoboard, 18 x 24″ (46 x 61 cm). Photograph: Etienne Frossard.

The Coffee Trader on Downer Avenue was the first “specialty coffee” venue in Milwaukee. It opened in 1974 and quickly became a social hub before closing at the end of the 1990s. The painting is based on an uncredited photograph.

In high school, I though the most glamorous thing in the world was going to the Coffee Trader on Downer Avenue with my friends to drink coffee and eat chicken fingers. Matthea H.