I ... I hate you.

As one of the most renowned streets in the best city in the greatest state in one of the top 50 countries in the most inhabitable planet that I’m personally aware of, Brady Street has a little something for everyone.

Lovers of decadent hot dogs, shitty taverns that refuse to adhere to the state’s workplace smoking ordinance, homeless people, and juggling emporiums with rhyming names alike can bide their time in this wonderful 9-block Milwaukee oasis. But fatass drunk assholes with an outside interest in unicycle purchase such as myself aren’t the only ones who can get something from Brady Street. Dirty hippies, too, can imbibe in this Eastside jewel on Milwaukee’s shimmering crown.
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Booooo!!!

Pizza and blow jobs are a lot alike. So long as nobody is biting your dick, you’re going to enjoy receiving even the worst of either thing.

The former is proved accurate by Marco’s Pizza (111 E. Forest Hill Ave., Oak Creek). A while back, I gave a pie from the T. Mario’s work-adjacent pizzeria a try. The experience can be summed up by placing one’s palms tightly against one’s lips and making a drawn out sound reminiscent of a wet fart. But since I can’t effectively execute this noise in text, and I know dick about making mp3s, I’ll do the next best thing and write about why Marco’s isn’t very good.
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The pizza is as adventurous as the exterior.

The concept of South Milwaukee is an odd one. When first hired to write for a South Milwaukee-based company, I was under the impression South Milwaukee was located in the Southern portion of Milwaukee. I could not have been more wrong.

Past Milwaukee, through portions of two additional cities (Cudahy and Oak Creek) and approximately one world away, sits … well, more slouches … the City of South Milwaukee. Here, pasty gangstas and juggalos roam the streets unimpeded. Here, establishments like “Buck & Cherryl’s” and “Snarley’s” prove preferred locales to blow one’s disability check on gambling machines and NASCAR brackets. I’ve never seen a pretty girl in South Milwaukee, save for some butterfaced mom who couldn’t of been more than 17. And even that was a reach.
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In addition to being a prophet of pizza, I also fancy myself a bit of a beer connoisseur. And you should too!

For starters, I used to be a paid (when they felt like it) contributor for Alcoholmanac — one of the Greater Milwaukee Area’s premier bi-monthly, 20-page-long, totally shitty, free publications of which you’ve undoubtedly never heard.

Secondly, I drink constantly. And that habitual hitting of the sauce has resulted in numerous actions and decisions that run the gamut of self-destructive, dangerous, unsavoury, and altogether regrettable in nature. Of the voluminous listing of unfortunate alcohol-based choices I’ve made, I would hoist ingesting Mamma Mia’s Pizza Beer somewhere between drunk driving home after being cut off at the Cactus Club, and inducing vomit into a campfire whilst shirtless alongside three other (also shirtless) dudes as an apparent rite of passage. It’s that bad.
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After learning that a pizza place was to open on Milwaukee’s vastly underutilized Downer Avenue and that it was affiliated with crosstown ‘za czars Transfer, I was struck with an excitement unparalleled by any previous pizza venue’s opening I can personally remember.

The weeks that followed were agonizing — like waiting to open a potato gun-shaped Christmas present from that awesome uncle you have who works with PVC pipe at his job (potato farmer is also an applicable occupation for this analogy). But somehow, much in thanks to fantasy baseball, Internet pornography and drinking to the point of blackout, I managed to stave off an impatience-based hari kari and live to see the beautiful day that Via Downer opened for business.
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Years ago, when someone in Milwaukee wanted De Marinis pizza, they simply went to the one location. Now they get an unwanted debate.

Rumor (Willis) has it that somewhere along the line, the DeMarinis family was split by a dispute powerful enough to cause the DeMarinis sons — Dom and Phil — to branch out and open their own DeMarinis pizza parlor not but two blocks away from MaMa DeMarinis’. I like to think it was all Jenga-related.

Though family feuds are never a good thing, especially when talking about the TV game show Family Feud, we thought it only fair to give both DeMarinis a try to see if one family’s heart-wrenching rift delivered us the sweet fruits of another bomb-ass Bay View pizza joint. Spoiler: It did.
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"A pizza divided against itself cannot be purchased at coupon price."

It’s impossible to deny the impact pizza has on the modern world. But few realize the immense role the pizza pie played throughout history. Doctors of Za tirelessly sifted through books, unearthed and analysed hidden documents, and even did that thing from movies where you look at old newspaper headlines on microfiche really late at night when everyone else has left the library and you’re totally exhausted. Here is just one of our findings.

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I still have trouble figuring out exactly where Milwaukee’s Historic Third Ward ends and Walker’s Point begins. I’ve deduced that I’ve probably entered Walker’s when things get just a bit shittier looking, when the crumbling brick facades of no-longer-functional factories become slightly more prevalent, when the faint sound of boxcar hobos ironically singing acapella versions of Rick Astley songs hangs delicately in the dingy metropolitan air. And there are probably signs too.

Besides that, landmarks like the continually steaming manhole outside Solid Gold Gentleman’s Club, the Allen Bradley clock tower and the always delicious Conjito’s serve as apt indicators of Walker’s Point presence to wide-eyed Northwoods hayseeds like myself. But in terms of Pizza Topography, Marchese’s Olive Pit is — bar none — the neighborhood’s highest point of elevation.
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Riverwest. It, with South Milwaukee, remains one of the few regional mysteries yet to be thoroughly explored in my still scant inhabitation of the City of Festivals.

I once met with a publisher at a coffee haus on Humboldt, I went to a few shows in the neighborhood, bought an $8 pair of grey slacks at ReThreads that leave no questions in regard to the exact contours of my cock’n'balls, and that’s about it.

Apart from those three things, I’ve learned that all the crustpunkers I know live or routinely hang there, Ronnie got mugged in Riverwest a few years back and Lakefront Brewery began there. Basically, I know shit about it. And after my inaugural Riverwest meal at NYPD, something tells me I probably need not investigate it much further.
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The square mile around Milwaukee’s famed Brady Street plays host to its fair share of pizzerias.

Zaffiro’s straight up owns the Eastside (motive for burning down Pizza Man?). Crisp offers douchetanks tasty slices and club music at bar time — same goes for Pizza Shuttle (minus the club music and plus red Gatorade in the soda fountain). Even Zayna’s is tasked with serving up hot za, fried corn nuggets and Lo-Carb Monster to drunken local pariahs.

Then there’s Meglio Pizzeria, tucked away down Humboldt Avenue in, what pretty much looks like, a house near the banks of the ever-brown, used-Band Aid strewn Milwaukee River. Meglio’s less-than-unshitty location combined with its fairly truant MKE pizza presence and overriding awkwardness makes it the Daniel Baldwin of Eastside pizza joints. Or was it Billy Baldwin? See what I mean!?!
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