Our Family

Milun & Milunka Radicevic
Founders 

Branko & Patricia Radicevic
Son and Daughter-in-Law

Milunka Radicevic
Grand Daughter

Branko Radicevic Jr
Grand Son

It began in Belgrade before WWII
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Welcome to the Three Brothers Restaurant. Opened in 1956 by Milun Radicevic, who had arrived in Milwaukee in 1949 and slowly, one by one after WWII, brought his family here to build a new life together. Since the beginning only family members have been the chefs.

"Three brothers was our family's Ellis Island," says his granddaughter Milunka, who runs the restaurant today. "Anyone that was ever related to us that was a Radicevic or Markovic, which is my grandmother's maiden name, that was from the former Yugoslavia. They would literally fly in and everyone's first stop was here and then the rest of their journey in America came after that. But everybody came here first."

Born in 1892, the elder Radicevic served in the military of the Kingdon of Serbia first during the Balkan Wars of 1912-13 and then again during World War I, after which he received his country's highest military honor.

Radicevic (at left) was back in uniform – for Yugoslavia, which had been created in 1918 from a merger of lands controlled by Serbs, Croatians and Slovenes – when World War II arrived. This time, he was captured by the Germans and because he supported resistance leader Draja Mihajlovic after Yugoslavia was invaded by Hitler, he was sent to a concentration camp in northern France.

Escaping 20 days later, Radicevic fled first to France and then to England, where the Polish government was in exile after Germany invaded, and he joined Polish forces.

"On his way to finding his own safety, a French platoon was shot down and instead of continuing to flee for his own life, he turned around and helped them," explains his granddaughter.

"Through his contribution to the resistance movement, he received asylum first in France, and then he went to England. And it was in England where he was waiting for papers and you needed sponsorship to come to America at the time. So he was sponsored by a Lutheran family here."

In 1949, sponsored by that family, Radicevic arrived in Milwaukee, where he took a job as a liquor salesman, putting to use experience he'd gleaned from his career back home as a winemaker and distiller.

In 1953, Radicevic took over a tavern at 814 S. 2nd St. – now home to Snack Boys – which some say he called Big Mike's but other sources, including newspaper ads, suggest was called Mike's Good Luck Tavern.

The saloon appears to have had a long association with Milwaukeeans with ties to Eastern Europe. In the 1930s it was run by Frank Verbich and then, as Wimpy's Tavern, by John Gorishek. In 1952, then-barkeep Sam Orlich died and his widow Eva sold to Milun Radicevic. (A Sam Radovich was there at some point around this time, too.)

After Radicevic moved his business to Bay View, names like Filipovich and Milun Dragich followed at the old 2nd Street tavern.

That move to Bay View took place in 1956 and one has to assume it was related to the fact that he was finally able to bring his wife Milunka (pictured below) to America the previous year.

"When my grandmother came with that, it became instrumental in terms of the restaurant becoming what it is today," says young Milunka. "She came here, took all that she knew, and created the menu that we have today.

"And what's remarkable about the menu that we have is now you can get every imported cheese you can imagine, almost as authentic of a product from abroad. When she created the menu, she used the things that you could find here, grew most of the things, made her own cheeses ... literally everything by scratch, by hand."

Radicevic named his new Bay View restaurant and tavern Three Brothers, in the hope that one day his three sons would run it.

Slowly, the Radicevics worked in their restaurant and, simultaneously, worked to get the rest of their family here. In 1957, their daughter arrived, followed soon after by a son. The following year, the Journal caught wind of the story and ran photos and an article under the headline, "Torn from Belgrade home by Nazis, he builds a new life in Milwaukee."

By then 66 years old, Milun dreamed of reuniting his family around the Christmas tree that year. It was a dream so strong that Though it wasn't meant to be, it turned out he didn't have to wait too long. By January, his son Branko arrived and just days later, his son Aleksander was here, too.

"When my dad came in January '59, it was a bitter, bitter, bitter cold day here," says Milunka Radicevic, who is Branko's daughter. "He told me the bitter, bitter cold day sort of encapsulated his first experience. When he landed he kissed the ground."

The building where the family was reunited, was erected on a small triangular spit of land in Bay View purchased by the Schlitz Brewing Company from Rowland Thomas and his wife in July 1897 for $250.

A 1956 classified ad for the building offered a "large solid brick building with living quarters upstairs. Possibilities unlimited. Building and license," with immediate occupancy and a two-car garage for $17,000. Milun purchased the building.

In the meantime, Three Brothers was quietly making a name for itself with the kind of unassuming atmosphere and quality food that remain its trademarks today.

Although Radicevic's boys all made it to America, they didn't all stay to work at the restaurant named in their honor. In 1971, Aleksander opened his own place, called Old Town Serbian Restaurant, and Branko had followed a different path altogether.

"He was first in New York," says his daughter, Milunka. "That's where he met my mother. He was promoted and she was promoted into his (old) position. They met, fell in love, married, and then they were both transferred to California and he was doing international banking in L.A. That's where my sisters were born and myself. My father was very happy with his job at Bank of America."

But families like these stick together and when Milun became ill in 1972, Branko came home.

"In our culture, the eldest son takes care of his family," says Milunka, "and so my parents both took a leave of absence thinking that they were going to come here and bring my grandmother and grandfather to sunny California."

You already know the ending. That did not happen. Instead, in 1976, Milun died, and Branko and his wife never returned to sunny California.

"My mom landed here," says Milunka, "and started out serving."

During the day she helped with food prep and over time she learned her mother-in-law's recipes and carried the tradition forward when the elder Milunka died in 1982.

Since that time, Three Brothers has continued to thrive.

It's been featured in numerous national publications, including Bon Appetit and Gourmet magazines and, just this month, in The New York Times.

In 1976, it was named a City of Milwaukee landmark.

In 2002, the restaurant earned a coveted James Beard Award, calling it an American Classic.

"That award speaks really to the whole city and the state because we wouldn't be here if the community didn't support us," says Milunka. "So that gift was a huge spiritual thing for me. I felt really moved by it. Even now."

"Everyone says to me, what's your position? What's your job title? And I, and I tell everyone, because it's genuinely so, my title is daughter. I didn't necessarily take over. It's our family and our family's business. Just as my father came here, he didn't necessarily take over the restaurant. He came to help his family. So his title was son, my mother's title was daughter-in-law.

"When I look around the restaurant, the way the chairs have worn is (from) all the hands that have touched it. My dad always used to sit right here for Monday night dinners. I would have some timeouts in that corner. When we had the jukebox, we would hide in the jukebox to play hide-and-go-seek. We would play in the sink in the, in the ladies room because that's the original bathroom, the original sink that for children's perfect children's height.

"There is no kitchen upstairs, so the restaurant is our kitchen and our dining room. There's always been this really beautiful continuity between family and extended family and family work, family work. And because we were so young when we were here, it's like very much just intrinsically who we really are now and what we think and how we feel and it, every time we open for, for dinner service, the, the best way that I can explain to people is that it's like having people over for Thanksgiving every night where you create this dinner and it's grand because you hope that everybody can have a wonderful experience here."

Having visited a fair number of Schlitz taverns in Milwaukee, I marveled at the belted globe, the memorabilia, the Grand Tetons mural, the original ceilings and wainscoting, the vintage bar and furniture.

But, really, more than anything else, I marveled at Milunka and her profound connection to this place; a place that has been the concrete – nay, the cream city brick – personification of the American dream for three generations of her family.

"My grandfather, my father, my uncles, my aunts," she says, "were so grateful, our family was raised so grateful to be here and for the opportunity to come here after going through everything that they went through and to be able to start fresh and to find footing, find a place, find a home, after such turmoil."

By Bobby Tanzilo/Senior Editor/Writer/OnMilwaukee