Vintage Spirits and Grill announced on Instagram Wednesday the restaurant will remain open indefinitely. Co-owner and founder Brittany Kraemer said this comes after The Carey Group Commercial Real Estate Services, LLC pulled their development from the property.
The proposed development was part of the larger City of Madison Downtown Plan, which recommends the area where Vintage is located, the Johnson Street Bend neighborhood, be used for higher density residential use, according to the Downtown Plan.
The planned development would have brought new high-density student housing, with commercial space on the first floor. The lot where Vintage is located is one of the few lots left in the downtown area zoned for high-density mixed-use buildings, according to previous reporting by The Badger Herald.
Vintage was scheduled to close after May 2025, when construction was set to begin on the new development. Upon announcing the planned closure, local community members on Instagram expressed support for the longstanding restaurant, advocating for it to remain open.
“From my understanding, there were just a lot of changes that still needed to be made and they weren’t that optimistic about everything going through,” Kraemer said. “The support of Vintage [also] spoke a lot.”
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Though the close date has changed multiple times over the past fourteen months, the staff at Vintage have remained loyal, even picking up as many shifts as possible to continue spending time in the space, Kraemer said.
Kraemer had prior knowledge the restaurant would remain open, but most staff members learned the news Thursday afternoon, through the aforementioned Instagram post.
“They’re all pretty stoked,” Kraemer said. “Kevin [of The Carey Group] came in, which was very gracious of him, to take down the demolition signs, so we were going to wait a couple days to put it on social media and that didn’t work.”
The property is currently owned by the Goeden family, who has owned the property since the 1950s, according to The Badger Herald.
Kraemer and her husband are now working to acquire the property from the Goeden family, as they have been running Vintage since they bought the coffee shop previously located on-site in the spring of 2002.
“The plan is not to do anything, just continue it as we started 22 years ago,” Kraemer said. “She’s definitely our baby, it’s just such a great space, such a great community that gathers there, so she’s staying.”
