Golden Hour Coffee + Wine, the beverage bar tucked inside White Brick Salon on Capitol Drive in Brookfield, has finished a seven-month construction project that tore down a wall to make room for more guests. The expansion comes as the coffee and wine bar prepares to roll out a fall menu on September 2, adding roughly eight new items including a pumpkin spice latte.
Co-owner Brandon Brandemuehl told TMJ4 News that the construction created space to fit more people and improve the overall experience at the shared space. He and his wife, hair artist Loren Brandemuehl, have owned White Brick Salon for five years, building it into a luxury salon known for its patented Invisible Bead Extensions® and custom hair coloring, according to White Brick Salon.
The idea for Golden Hour grew out of something the couple kept noticing at the salon. Brandemuehl said clients frequently arrived at White Brick Salon already carrying coffee, which got the pair thinking about cutting out the extra stop altogether — as the TMJ4 headline put it, they figured they might as well cut one step out. Multi-hour appointments for extensions and color services gave clients plenty of downtime to fill with something more than a cup from another shop.
How the Chairside Ordering Works
Clients seated in the salon chair can order drinks straight from their phones, with beverages delivered to them without interrupting their hair or skin appointments, per Golden Hour Coffee + Wine. The bar's roughly 31 menu options include coffee, matcha and more, and the shop pulls its primary espresso beans from Milwaukee-based roaster Anodyne Coffee Roasting Co. Golden Hour opens daily at 8 a.m. and runs from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, plus 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Sundays, stretching well past typical salon hours into evening wine-lounge territory.
No hair appointment is required to walk in and order — the coffee and wine bar functions as its own neighborhood stop, not just a perk for salon clients. Even so, White Brick Salon and Golden Hour operate as separate business entities, meaning gift cards and store credit from one cannot be used at the other, the coffee shop's site notes.
Two Golden Retrievers Behind the Name
The Golden Hour name traces back to the owners' own dogs: Billy, a 5-year-old golden retriever, and Coba, who is almost 9, regularly show up at the shop. Despite the pet-inspired branding, health compliance rules only allow certified service or therapy animals inside the venue, so personal pets are not permitted, according to Golden Hour's FAQ page.
The Capitol Drive building that houses both businesses sits within a Targeted Investment Area under the City of Brookfield's master planning, a designation aimed at drawing mixed-use retail, dining and service redevelopment to the corridor, per the City of Brookfield. That municipal push toward commercial modernization lines up with what Golden Hour and White Brick Salon are doing under one roof.
Part of a Bigger Hybrid Business Trend
The salon-and-beverage-bar pairing also fits into a broader pattern industry watchers have flagged. Point-of-sale data and reporting from Square point to a growing national trend toward what it calls multihyphenate hybrid retail spaces, such as salon-cafes and spa-taprooms, designed to keep customers around longer and diversify revenue beyond a single service.
That kind of expansion is happening against a backdrop of surging entrepreneurial activity across Wisconsin. New business applications statewide hit a record 71,475 in 2025, a 15.1% jump over 2024 filings, according to U.S. Census Bureau data summarized by Boost Suite. For Brookfield, the growth of Golden Hour Coffee + Wine offers a local example of that statewide momentum playing out one renovated wall at a time.
