Ok so – how did NORTH STAR get started? If you ask Mike and Duffy – they’ll tell you they had a couple of beers, found a place and the rest is history. And ok, those things did happen, but there’s a lot of other stuff that happened in between. Duffy and Mike have been in the restaurant industry for a long time and their paths finally crossed while working for a restaurant group in Milwaukee. After the previously mentioned beers, they found a place in Shorewood (now across the street from where you are sitting – if you are sitting in Shorewood) and on a shoestring budget – we are talking tiny: as in paint the place yourself and have your mom sew some curtains kind of budget – the first NORTH STAR AMERICAN BISTRO SHOREWOOD was born. A few months later, so was Duffy’s first child and then things got REALLY crazy – but that’s another story. Anyway, turns out – people really liked the REAL.GOOD.FOOD. menu and concept AND they liked Mike and Duffy (which is a good thing because back in the day if you didn’t like Mike and Duffy, you didn’t really have any other options – they were there doing all of the jobs at all times. Did you ever see that I Love Lucy episode where Lucy goes to the train station and asks the conductor where she can buy a ticket and he says – “One minute – I’ll get the ticket agent.” So he goes in the back, changes his hat and comes back and sells her the ticket? That was Mike and Duffy.) Eventually though, staff was added and the entirely too hectic life that was theirs slowed to moderately crazy, which left them just enough time to open NORTH STAR AMERICAN BISTRO BROOKFIELD.
