New times two: Eat in a tree at Georgie Porgie's

By Michael Burke
Journal Times

Sunday, November 2, 2008 12:55 AM CDT

MOUNT PLEASANT — No kid ever had a tree fort like the one at Georgie Porgie’s, the restaurant that opened here recently.

Brandon Beaulieu, 11, sure didn’t believe the tale his sister, Nickie, told after her first visit to Georgie Porgie’s.

“She was talking about the big, giant tree,” he said. “I thought she was crazy.”

The “big, giant tree” is the thick, fabricated oak tree that appears to support the second-story tree house — a 27-seat dining area that tends to be packed when the diner gets a little busy.

A simulated white oak tree is the centerpiece of Georgie Porgie’s, a restaurant which has opened in the Mount Pleasant Corners shopping center at 5502 Washington Ave. The theme of the restaurant is a tree house. Diners can even climb the stairs to eat on the upper level of the restaurant. Buy this photo at http://www.jtreprints.com Mark Hertzberg Journal Times

“We came the other day, and (the restaurant) was just the coolest thing you could imagine,” raved Diana Beaulieu, grandmother of Nickie, 16, and Brandon.

“You couldn’t get up here (into the tree fort),” she said. “It was full.” So the Beaulieus came back Thursday to eat in the tree house.

“It’s cool. I like the environment,” Nickie said.

“I like the carvings,” Brandon added. He was referring to the hundreds of sayings and names etched into tabletops, lunch counters and wooden walls.

In fact, carved into one central tabletop are the names of the subcontractors and tradespeople who helped build Georgie Porgie’s. They were encouraged to mark their presence that way by Peter and Louie Liapis, the brothers who own Georgie Porgie’s and created its look.

That’s the kind of carefree, youthful imprint the brothers have stamped on their restaurant at the corner of highways 20 and 31.

“You’re supposed to feel like a kid” at Georgie Porgie’s, Peter said. “Because that’s what life is supposed to be like, having fun.”

Matching talents

As owners, Peter, 34, and Louie, 28, appear perfectly matched, in skill and temperament, for this enterprise. Peter — a former exhibit designer and graphic designer at Milwaukee’s Discovery World museum — studied art and design in college, and Louie studied finance and marketing. They’re equally enthusiastic to talk about their creation and often finish each other’s sentences.

The brothers followed their father, George Liapis, into the restaurant business. The elder Liapis immigrated to the United States in the 1950s and worked in Chicago restaurants.

Co-workers gave him the moniker Georgie Porgie — and he gave that name to his first solo restaurant which he founded in Oak Creek in 1991. That first Georgie Porgie’s, now at Ryan Road and Howell Avenue, started with a 1950s theme.

Then, said Louie, “We said, ‘Let’s come up with a character (for Georgie Porgie).’ ” A friend of Peter’s drew the crew-cutted, bespectacled boy that is now Georgie Porgie.

“We wanted it to kind of look like my dad,” Peter said, “kind of nerdy, the neighborhood nerdy kid.”

Around that character, they gradually built the tree fort idea and decor. But in the Oak Creek restaurant, they had to make do with only a first floor.

“We always wanted to have the second story,” Louie said, “to have that experience of going up into the tree fort.”

Second store, second story

A few years ago, the brothers said, the family began asking their Oak Creek customers where they should open a second Georgie Porgie’s. “Eighty percent said Racine,” Louie said.

They said Racine Mayor Gary Becker tried to lure them to his city, and they also considered Regency Mall. Ultimately, they chose the new Mount Pleasant Corners center — not least because they had that second story for the tree house.

The massive, 3- to 4-foot-diameter oak tree was fabricated with a steel infrastructure, wire mesh, foam, a hardener coat, paint and sealer. Its construction took five to six weeks.

In all, Peter said, the restaurant build-out cost about $700,000 and the tree itself about $100,000.

The tree fort itself appears to have been hammered together with a 10-year-old’s haphazard lack of concern for precision, creating a charming effect. Throughout the restaurant is artwork and decor details that speak of a child’s world.

Since they opened the restaurant about three weeks ago, Peter said, they’ve seen a “huge increase” in customers compared with the first Georgie Porgie’s. And he said their customers tell them they got the look right.

“When they come inside they’re like, ‘This is it!’ ”

And with that satisfying result, both brothers say a psychological itch has been scratched.

“I never had a tree fort as a kid,” Peter said.

“Working really early, at 10 years old, we lost our childhood, and this is a way of bringing this out,” Louie said.

“Now we’re able to play and work. I think, (sub) consciously, that’s what happened.”

If You Go

WHAT: Georgie Porgie’s

WHERE: 5502 Washington Ave.

HOURS: 10:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday-Saturday, 11 a.m. to

9 p.m. Sunday

PHONE: (262) 635-5030

ON THE WEB: http://georgieporgies.com

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