Established in 1913, G. Groppi Food Market has been a staple in the Bayview area for a long time. When a building has been around that long, people take notice of even the smallest changes. In the fall of 2021, Anne Nehring, current owner of the food market, decided that it was time to replace the turf area outside her store. While this change was by no means small, people certainly took notice of New Vision’s patio space addition to the iconic food market. The patio even found a place in the 2022 summer edition of the Bay View Historian (BVHS-Historian-2022-06_email.pdf (bayviewhistoricalsociety.org) See page six). What made the patio space especially unique was the use of repurposed bricks salvaged from locations all over Milwaukee by our friends at The Brickyard Inc.

The use of repurposed bricks posed a number of interesting challenges for the New Vision Crew. For starters, even at the time of their creation most of the bricks were different sizes, being manufactured by different companies. Over time the bricks had been weathered through use, furthering the differences in shapes and sizes. This made piecing together the bricks especially challenging. On top of that, each brick is stamped with the name of their manufacturer. Out of respect for the original manufacturers, and with general aesthetics in mind, each brick was placed with the manufacturers name facing the same direction. This way each manufacturer could be clearly identified by any passing admirer of the patio. New Vision Landscaping was happy to take on these challenges and they were well worth the efforts. The use of repurposed bricks gives the appearance that the patio space has aged right alongside G. Groppi Food Market from the start.