Camino is moving its tacos and $5 burger Mondays from 434 S. 2nd Street to the former Engine Company No. 3 firehouse at 217 W. National Avenue, about three-tenths of a mile away. The restaurant announced the move this week, saying the new building will give it room to grow beyond its roughly 1,500-square-foot current space.
The firehouse is listed at 5,596 square feet in city assessment records, according to Urban Milwaukee. Camino opened in Walker's Point in 2015. The new site also includes a substantially larger patio than the restaurant has had before.
The expanded footprint could allow Camino to add catering, weddings, company parties, special events and more weekday and weekend programming, Milwaukee Record reported. The building has two floors of dining space and a side yard. Camino's $5 Monday burger is expected to continue, and the move keeps the restaurant in the Walker's Point neighborhood it has called home since 2015.
A Firehouse With Its Own Restaurant History
The building Camino is inheriting has its own hospitality pedigree. Peter and Sonia Sandroni converted the former Milwaukee Fire Department station into Engine Company No. 3 in 2014, and it operated as a brunch restaurant for nearly a decade before ending regular restaurant service at the end of 2023, after which it became a private events venue. The Sandronis also own La Merenda, the tapas restaurant at 125 E. National Avenue that opened in 2007.
A Broader Pattern of Reuse
A Wisconsin Main Street retrospective published by WEDC catalogs adaptive-reuse projects involving former buildings, including fire stations, converted into restaurants and event spaces, among other uses. The retrospective offers statewide context but does not identify comparable Milwaukee firehouse projects. Camino’s plan combines restaurant use with space for private events in a former station that itself previously operated as a restaurant and later as an events venue.
The timeline is not final: the proposal still needs Milwaukee Common Council approval, according to Urban Milwaukee. Camino plans to begin the move before winter and is aiming to reopen in the new space before the end of 2026, Milwaukee Record reported. Before leaving 2nd Street, the restaurant has an anniversary celebration planned for October 21, along with what it calls a birthday, thank-you and premature wake party for the building.
Not Camino's First Attempt at Expansion
Rataczak has considered a larger Walker's Point location before. In 2021, he explored moving Camino to 625-631 W. National Avenue, but that plan did not proceed; the property was sold in 2023. He later expanded the business by opening a second Camino in West Allis in 2020.
The building Camino is leaving has served a mix of industrial and commercial businesses, followed by The Filter Inn and The Social. In 2017, historian Michael Horne described its changing uses as part of Walker's Point's broader shift from industrial businesses toward restaurants, taverns and nightlife. Camino has been among the businesses associated with that change since opening in the neighborhood.
Part of a Broader Shuffle in Walker's Point
Camino's move adds to a run of restaurant reshuffling in the neighborhood. Urban Milwaukee also reported that Midwest SAD recently announced plans to relocate back to the lower-level food court where it first operated in 2024, after spending a year running its bakery out of a larger space at 601 S. 6th Street in Walker's Point. Rataczak's other ventures have shifted around town too — after Benno's Bar and Grill closed in summer 2022 following 41 years in business, he had been planning a new venue in the former Benno's building at 7413 W. Greenfield Avenue in West Allis, a space that later became home to Caulfield's Wine Bar when it opened in late 2024.
