Cafe Bavaria, the Lowlands group’s take on a German restaurant and bar, opens to the public Thursday at 7700 Harwood Ave. in Wauwatosa, next door to the group’s Cafe Hollander.

The restaurant is easing into its opening, with brunch beginning Feb. 22 instead of this weekend. The grand opening is Sunday.

Lowlands partner Mike Eitel said Bavaria’s hours will be 11 a.m. to 1 a.m. Monday to Friday and 8 a.m. to 2 a.m. Saturday and until 1 a.m. Sunday, opening early for brunch on the weekends. The kitchen is open until midnight.

Expect to see soccer on the TVs on the weekends. Eitel said games in the major European leagues will be shown.

As for the menu, it takes inspiration from German dishes and ingredients throughout: appetizers like a smoked seafood stack ($10.95) with lake and rainbow trout; pumpernickel flatbread ($9.95) with beets, leeks, sweet potato and Swiss and blue cheeses; and boards of meat and cheese ($10.95) and roasted vegetable ($8.95).

Sandwiches include roast wild boar with red cabbage slaw ($9.95), a pork or schnitzel sandwich ($10.95) and the Kaiser, a half-pound of bologna and butterkaese on a potato roll ($12.95).

Salads (spinach with pears, walnuts and dried cranberries, $5.95 and $9.95), burgers (the Maximilian with bacon, musrooms, roasted garlic and Weisslacker cheese, $14.95) and entrees such as rotisserie chicken ($15.95), pork with red cabbage ($18.95) and a vegetarian soup that riffs on pho, but with spaetzle, roasted vegetables and Hungarian chiles ($12.95) rounds out the menu.

There will be beer. The 16 drafts will include Frueh Koelsch, Koestritzer schwarzbier and Schwaben kellerbier. The majority of the roughly four dozen beers by the bottle will be German, including Julius Echter, Brauerei Heller-Trum and Ayinger.