2019 Midwest Foodservice Expo

Rachel Wiesner
General Manager
Downtown Kitchen, A Bartolotta Restaurant


Rachel Wiesner recalls her reason for joining the hospitality industry, “I was a 17-year-old hostess at (the now closed) Nonna Bartolotta’s. No restaurants in Milwaukee had waits at that time and I quoted a gentleman an hour wait and he was irritated. The General Manager brought out a flatbread to pass in the bar as people waited for their tables, and in that moment I witnessed how transformative food could be. A small square of freshly made flatbread quelled the discomfort of a long wait and I was hooked.” Rachel attended University of Las Vegas to get her degree in Hotel Restaurant Management and returned to Wisconsin in 2006 where she worked at Marquette University as the Director of Catering and then rejoined The Bartolotta Restaurants in 2010 as the General Manager of Boerner Botanical Gardens. She currently serves as the GM of Downtown Kitchen. In her free time she enjoys hanging out with her dogs Tonka and Pete, working on home improvement projects and gardening. Visit the Downtown Kitchen site

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