Right down Oakland Avenue is a Shorewood classic; Draft & Vessel. Originally founded in 2014 by Nathaniel Davauer, the bar quickly became known for its cozy ambiance. Run by a small management team, the business now has a total of seven locations: three bars across Shorewood, Wauwatosa, and Walkers Point, one event space in Walkers Point, three beer trucks across the greater Milwaukee area, and, coming soon to the Vel Phillips Plaza, a restaurant, Draft & Co.
Unlike other nearby bars, Draft & Vessel is not a sports bar and was built without televisions. Instead, the bar provides a more intimate experience for its customers, fostering connections that have become increasingly difficult to form as the digital age progresses.
“Everybody in there knows each other and they go in there to see each other because they know the other people are going to show up,” Davauer said. “It’s like you’re seeing the members of your community. In the past, you would run into all these people in your community and get a chance to talk to them. In this new reality, it’s not the same anymore. They lost some of that interconnection between other humans in their community. So certain bars and stuff become that [community]. And [Draft & Vessel] definitely became that.”
In addition to the connection, each of the bars creates a unique experience for its customers. While every Draft & Vessel maintains their “cool” and “stylish” vibe and follows the same principles, each has a distinct atmosphere. These distinctions impact the community present at each bar.
“Shorewood is a little bit older,” Davauer said. “It’s the oldest demographic of all of them. In Tosa, you have people who are younger. You end up with a lot of people who are more like 30s and 40s. And then [the] Pomeroy has the youngest demographic because the people who are living down in Walker’s Point are mostly young.”
The Shorewood Draft & Vessel location is where the business began. Originally only serving beer before adding other beverages, the business has a selective menu catered to its customers, including wines, cocktails, and even kombucha.
“In a funny way, the audience tells you how to run the business,” Davauer said. “Maybe if you were a super business-oriented business planning person, that’s one thing. But if you’re more of an instinctual person, you just watch what works and the business is going to tell you. It’s going to be like, ‘Look, this is what works. See how that person likes this thing?’ And then you see what they all love to do, like Book Night.”
Book Night is an event at the Walker’s Point location. Customers are invited to bring a book and read at the space, enjoy a few drinks, and chat with their fellow readers every Monday evening. This is just one of the many events Draft & Vessel hosts at their bars.
The experience Draft & Vessel provides to its customers is stemmed from Davauer’s own experiences thinking outside of the box. Growing up on a dairy farm in Fall River, he had gravitated towards opportunities to exercise his creativity.
“I’m inherently drawn to creative endeavors, whatever that might be,” Davauer said. “Even as a kid and on the farm, we were doing things that normal farmers weren’t. We were building stuff out of cardboard and making our own costumes and sewing outfits for stuffed animals…That’s what we were doing when we were young. We actually wanted to build [things] ourselves out of cardboard or out of snow or something and, it turns out, the building was the fun part.”
He later went to college in Madison to study a variety of things that interested him, such as the arts, sociology, psychology, and even astronomy. Even though he studied a large array of topics, business was not among them. Instead, Davauer was able to build multiple establishments from the ground up with his creative interests.
Before Draft & Vessel, there were other business ideas that Davauer tried out. He describes himself as someone who likes to try new things, therefore exploring all sorts of creative opportunities and pursuing them. There were many different business ideas Davauer experimented with.
For one thing, Davauer started doing photography. He picked up a bit from his schooling, but ultimately learned more from traveling and teaching himself along the way.
“Being a photographer was cool,” Davauer said. “I don’t do it much anymore, but that was my main job for many years.”
Davauer’s endeavors didn’t all work out. He described his path to the present as “a string of failures,” but rather than just viewing them as failures, they were ideas that he tried and steps to where he is now. He even had an idea to travel the country in a renovated bus, which eventually fell apart.
Some of his other business ideas were pursued while he was abroad. After Davauer graduated from UW Madison, he went to China because it fascinated him. There he carried soap to Japan for money as a side hustle, but he also started Chen’s Chopsticks; a business that sold items inspired by Chinese culture to Americans, such as hats, bracelets, and little books.
“If you had interviewed me in 2008, I would have been talking about this big failure of this bus idea,” Davauer said. “If you interviewed me in 1996, we would have been talking about a big failure of Chen’s Chopstick Factory…There were little things, little ideas, but never massive failures; more [things that were] fun to try.”
Though photography was still going for him, Davauer eventually grew out of that as well. His travels were rooted in his photography, and once he felt accomplished enough in his travels he began to question what was next. When photography began to feel more like a job than an art, it came time for the next thing.
“And the more you do it, the more you dislike it, like any job,” Davauer said. “Even a photographer, after a long time, that’s why I ended up opening the bar, because you actually get sick of this thing that used to be so fun. Then you’re like, I got to do something else.”
When he first bought the building for his bar in Shorewood, it wasn’t much, but with a little imagination and enterprise, he was able to turn it into something that was economically beneficial as well as a space to bring the community together.
When it came to constructing his business, he focused on creativity, as well as instinct. As an entrepreneur, Davauer learned to trust his own judgments rather than those of others.
“The funny thing is, again, I kind of feel like I’m the opposite of what might be expected,” Davauer said. “I’ve always felt like the flip side of a business operator, because I’ve always not wanted to have a plan. I’m much more of a kind of unscripted instinct person. In the long run, your instincts are your number one thing.”
There were many instances where others told him what he should do to advance his career and to increase business, but Davauer decided to go with his own judgments, and to trust himself in his decisions. He found he had the most success when he stopped listening to the voices of others and tuned in on what he wanted to do; what he wanted to accomplish. As the trust for himself grew, so did his business.
“I think all that [doubt] is your worst enemy,” Davauer said. “It’s someone else or something else sowing doubt. But if you think [you have] a good idea [you should go with it]. If I think it’s good, then I trust myself, and you start to trust your instincts and you start to realize [your ideas are worthy].”
The next idea Davauer is pursuing is his upcoming restaurant, Draft & Co, in partnership with Crave Cafe. Located in the Vel Phillips Plaza, this burger place and bar is still in the construction phase, but will be opening in the next few months.