Despite suggestions otherwise that led to mistaken reports, including at OnMilwaukee, Frank’s Power Plant, 2800 S. Kinnickinnic Ave., has not closed and has not been sold, though it is still for sale.
Owner Frank Wickert told Milwaukee Record, "the bar is not closed, and the bar is not sold. I don’t know how that rumor got started."
Former bar manager Becky Cottreau told OnMilwaukee that talk of "closing" on a potential sale of the bar was misunderstood to mean the bar itself was shutting its doors.
Referring to a conflict between employees and Wickert, Cottreau said, "I think emotions were running high and some of the staff do feel as though this was the close of an era and perhaps used the incorrect words to describe it."
Employees walked out en masse because, Cottreau and others said, they believed the bar was being sold and they were being kept in the dark and would be fired by new owners.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
