Carol Deptolla

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The last day for Mimma's Cafe — the Italian restaurant that brought destination dining to Brady St. in 1989 — will be New Year's Eve.

Girolama "Mimma" Megna said the time was right to retire. "I've done it so long. I've been cooking over 60 years," she said.

"I fed more people than McDonald did," the native of Sicily likes to say. "That's been my passion, to feed people."

It was time, she said, to let a younger generation take over.

The building that houses the restaurant, at 1301-1307 E. Brady, was sold recently to JC Capital 1301 Brady LLC. Its registered agent is Jeno Cataldo, a longtime neighbor of Mimma's. The Cataldo family operates Jo-Cat's Pub next door at 1311 E. Brady.

"We've known her since we've been kids," Jeno Cataldo said. Cataldo said he bought the building from R&R Property Holdings as an investment property and thought Megna — who at 70 is in the restaurant's kitchen daily and lives upstairs — would continue the restaurant for some time. Cataldo said he didn't press her to retire.

Megna said she chose Brady St. because it was what she could afford at the time — $500 a month rent. The restaurant at first had seats for 18 people, and the kitchen was small as well. The equipment included a two-burner stove, Megna recalled.

Cataldo said he has already been contacted by three restaurateurs about taking over the space, but he has his own idea for it. His family operated a restaurant called Cataldo's for 35 years at the other end of Brady St., where the recently closed restaurant Bosley on Brady stands. He would like to open a contemporary version of his family's place, "make a cool, modern — I know this sounds like an oxymoron — small-plate Italian restaurant."

Cataldo said he wants the ambience to be warm, with a Brady St. vibe. The street, he noted, has turned into a late-night dinner and drinks destination. In warm weather, the sidewalk patios outside bars and restaurants are filled with customers late into the evening.

Cataldo said he "wouldn't turn it into something that doesn't honor what (Megna) did there."

Megna opened the restaurant at 1301 E. Brady after operating an Italian deli in Cedarburg.

The restaurant, which didn't take reservations in its early years, became so popular that patrons began waiting at nearby bars, including Jo-Cat's, where they could peruse a menu and have a drink before the restaurant called the bars to say the tables were ready.

Its popularity continued, and in two years, Megna began expanding, eventually adding two buildings to the east. The restaurant's growth is credited with helping to draw further investment to Brady St., which had deteriorated in the 1970s and '80s.

Over the years, she fed celebrities, including former Milwaukee Brewer Paul Molitor, actors Ernest Borgnine and Leslie Nielsen and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, often cooking dishes for famous and anonymous guests like their mothers used to make.

From 2002 to 2007, Megna also operated an upscale pizzeria nearby, at 1323 E. Brady St., called Vucciria, later Coco Bella. That building, owned in part by the Megna family, was lost in a foreclosure in 2008. By then, the street's revitalization was cemented.

"We have a lot of respect for what she's done there," Cataldo said.

Ald. Nic Kovac, whose 3rd District includes Brady St. and who grew up on the east side, said Mimma's is one of the businesses operated by Sicilian families that have been Brady St.'s backbone over the years. "It's an institution," he said.

Mimma's restaurant will have regular hours until its last night on Dec. 31. Megna will have a menu of "greatest hits," specialties culled from the current menu, for customers returning to see Megna and have dishes like pasta with seafood before she retires.

The restaurant's closing might not mean the last of Mimma in the kitchen, though. Cataldo said he's asked her to consult with him on the new restaurant, and Wolf Peach and Supper restaurateur Gina Gruenewald wants Megna to have a pop-up restaurant on Monday nights at Supper, called Mimma's Supper, in the restaurant's 20-seat private-event room at the Shorecrest apartments on N. Prospect Ave.

Megna said she has loved meeting customers over the years. "They will always have a special place in my heart."

But retirement will let Megna, who has survived cancer and a heart attack, leave behind her long workdays.

"Now it's time for me to cook for myself," she said.