Following a renovation, Sendik’s Food Market has reopened perhaps its most beloved store – at least among the Milwaukee area’s preschoolers.
Betty Brinn Children’s Museum opened its remodeled Sendik’s Food Market exhibit on April 9. The exhibit resembles a child-friendly grocery store with produce and floral sections, shopping carts, and checkout aisles.
The store was redone with new structures and interactive items, Sendik’s co-owner Ted Balistreri told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
The original Sendik’s exhibit was built more than 15 years ago, and a renovation was long overdue, Balistreri said. The company wanted to align the exhibit with the look of a modern grocery store complete with touchscreen cash registers.
“Over time, things get a little bit worn out, and we wanted to reinvest in this spot,” Balistreri said. “What we really want to do is be an integral part of the communities we operate in. And here at the Betty Brinn Children’s Museum, it’s like its own mini community.”
Sendik’s is also celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. As a nod to its past, the exhibit includes a 1920s-era Model T grocery delivery truck repurposed for children to explore.
Exhibits like Sendik’s allow children to learn and engage in imaginative play within a simulated adult world, said Betty Brinn CEO Tina Quealy.
“Kids’ lives are increasingly overstructured, so it gives them an opportunity to model what they see adults doing,” Quealy said. “It gets them to collaborate together, play different roles throughout the exhibit, and then it also helps them express their social-emotional and gross motor skills.”
The children’s museum is looking for a new Milwaukee location that would double its 10,500 square feet of exhibition space. With around 170,000 annual visitors, Betty Brinn has outgrown its longtime location at Museum Center Park, 929 E. Wisconsin Ave.
Betty Brinn hopes to find a new home by the end of 2026. But opening a new facility is still around five years away, Quealy said, so the new Sendik’s exhibit will see plenty of use until then.
The exhibit is just one of Sendik’s stores getting a complete overhaul this year. Construction is underway on the company’s two-story, 37,000-square-foot store at 500 E. Silver Spring Drive, in Whitefish Bay.
It will replace the 20,000-square-foot store currently on that site, and include a café and full bar. The new grocery store is expected to open in August.
Francesca Pica can be reached at fpica@usatodayco.com.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Renovated Sendik’s exhibit opens at Betty Brinn Children’s Museum
Reporting by Francesca Pica, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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