Flour Girl & Flame serves sourdough pizza for MACC Fund fundraiser

A sourdough crust, cavatappi pasta and hand-smoked tomato drizzle turned a weekend special at Flour Girl & Flame into a fundraiser with real local bite. The West Allis shop sold the Fleetwood MACC Fund (& Cheese) through Sunday, April 19, and 25 percent of each pizza went to the MACC Fund.

The pie was built on the restaurant’s wood-fired sourdough base and loaded with house Wisconsin cheese sauce, Nueske’s pepper bacon, scallions and Smokin’ T’s hand-smoked tomato drizzle. It was the kind of playful, comfort-food mashup that makes sense in a room built around hot ovens and casual service. For sourdough readers, the point was not just the topping list. It was the way the dough carried a rich, high-flavor pizza without disappearing under it.

Flour Girl & Flame’s West Allis location at 8125 W National Ave was open Wednesday through Sunday from 4 to 8 p.m., with the shop typically serving 12-inch wood-fired sourdough pies Thursday through Sunday. Wednesday was reserved for Detroit Night. The restaurant also describes itself as woman-owned and part of the LGBTQ+ community, which makes the fundraiser feel rooted in the same neighborhood-minded spirit that drives a lot of Milwaukee’s independent food scene.

Chef Dana Spandet said the partnership made sense once the MACC Fund’s mission became clear. That mission has been active since 1976, when the nonprofit was founded on the court of the Milwaukee Bucks during halftime on December 10 by broadcaster Eddie Doucette and Jon McGlockin, after Doucette’s son was diagnosed with leukemia. The organization says it has raised nearly $90 million for childhood cancer and related blood disorder research.

The MACC Fund’s fundraising reach is broad, with more than 75 events in its ecosystem. Its history includes the MACC Fund Open, which began in 1977 and became the first major public event benefiting the charity. The group also says it supports the UW Carbone Cancer Center with $400,000 in annual grants and backs the MACC Fund Childhood Cancer Research Wing with $3.5 million in funding, described there as $240,000 annually. MACC Fund development director Michael Bielawski emphasized that community collaborations have sustained the nonprofit for 50 years.

That is what made the Fleetwood MACC Fund (& Cheese more than a novelty special. It used a sourdough pizza format to pull neighborhood traffic toward a cause with deep Milwaukee roots, and it did it in a tight window that gave diners one clear reason to act before the weekend ended.