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Forty years is pretty impressive for a bar, nightclub, events venue or even a restaurant.
Walker’s Point’s La Cage – the first iterations of which debuted in 1984 as La Cage aux Folles – is all four of those things. It is also among the longest-running LGBTQ bars in Milwaukee.
As such, owner Dave Wolz is planning a quartet of celebrations this year, the first of which takes place this week.
On Wednesday, March 6 at 6 p.m., the venue, 801 S. 2nd St., will host a 40th birthday party, with drink specials, hors d’oeuvres, cake and live performances.
Then, on Saturday, March 9 at 6:30 p.m., there’s The Black & White Ga La Cage, an anniversary benefit and photography exhibition opening event.
You can check out “Behind the Queen,” a look at the journeys of three drag queens – Dita Von, Melee Queen and the late Tempest Heat – through the lens of photographer Leonardt Horak.
There will also be signature cocktails, hors d’oeuvres, a performance by La Cage’s Queens, a tribute to Tempest Heat, a silent auction and more, with proceeds benefitting Courage MKE and Edess School of Fashion.
Wolz says he plans at least three more celebrations, including a stage production of “La Cage aux Folles” by Outskirts Theater in June.
“In honor of four decades of decadence,” he quips. “We’re also looking at doing a Battle of the Badges,” a drag show competition between Milwaukee firefighters and police officers.
Stay tuned for more on those.
But first, as always, a little history ... going way back.
Look high up near the top of the beautifully ornate Italianate building that’s home to La Cage and you’ll see the surname “Bahr” and the year 1887 engraved in elaborate script.
Frederick M. Bahr is the man who built this two-story gem, in part as a home for his family, in part as a place for his retail grocery business and in part as an investment, as there were also another retail space and other residential units in the structure, accessed by a central staircase.
Bahr was born in Germany on Sept. 15, 1820. Marrying Ottilie Neitzel (born Sept. 2, 1826), the couple had a son named Hugo on April 18, 1851. At that time, they were living in Gastrow, in West Prussia, which is now part of Poland.
By June 1854, the small family arrived in the U.S., settling first in Philadelphia, where two more sons – Paul and Louis – were born. By 1857, the family headed west to Milwaukee.
In 1860 the Bahr family, now with a 3-year-old daughter and another son, age 1 – both born in Wisconsin – was living in Walker’s Point, and Frederick working as a cabinet maker.
It’s unclear whether or not Bahr brought his woodworking skills with him across the Atlantic, but he kept at it for another decade, working for a time as a carpenter for the Milwaukee & Prairie du Chien Railroad and then as a furniture maker with partner C.W. Wente as Bahr & Wente.
At least as early as 1865 and perhaps before that, Bahr was living – and, it appears, working – on Reed Street (the old name for South 2nd Street) in a small frame building that still stands at 811 S. 2nd St., next door to the building that bears his name.
By 1870, the census – typically compiled early in the year – lists Bahr as working in a carpentry shop, but baptism documents for two of his children describe him as a painter that June.
Perhaps something occurred around that time that led to a career change because by the time the 1871 city directory was published, Bahr had converted his wood shop into a grocery store and become a retail grocer.
He must’ve done well in this line of work because he would continue on in it until his retirement. By 1878, if not earlier, Bahr was joined by his son Louis, renaming the business Bahr & Son. That became plural a few years later, when William and Gustav also entered.
That the business could support so many suggests Bahr & Sons was prosperous. And no further proof of that prosperity was needed than the fact that in May of 1887, Bahr pulled a permit for his $13,000 building next door on the high-profile corner of 2nd and National.
Whoever was tapped by Bahr as architect designed a beautiful cream city brick building; one that would come to be described, accurately, as “exuberant.”
The stunning structure has elaborate window hoods on the second floor; a detailed metal cornice; a pair of bays that jut out over the National Avenue sidewalk: a small turret on the corner, supported by a cast iron column; and cupola in the center of the 2nd Street facade, topped with a weathervane.
Two street-level storefronts were divided by a staircase leading up to the second floor, where the apartments were located.
Sadly, Bahr may or may not even have seen the work completed, as he died at the age of 68 on Aug. 28, 1888.
Bahr’s sons continued the grocery business in the southernmost retail space for a while afterward – at least as late as 1903 – while the corner spot was rented out.
In the 1890s the building housed a cigar factory and, in the lower level, a tailor’s shop.
By the turn of the century, the corner retail space had become a saloon, run by Fred Mehners, who had previously had a place across the street as early as 1891. Though Fred died in 1907, his wife Annie (nee Schmidt) kept the saloon going until Prohibition arrived in 1920.
Over the years the two spaces were occupied by a variety of businesses.
Fleck Furniture followed the Bahr grocery in the space on the left. Over the years that was also home to a candy store and manufacturer; storage for National Furniture Company; Helen Berce’s restaurant, later run by John Sigl and later still by Engel Bellos; Wilke’s used appliances and TV repair; El Caribe Rec Room, run by Augustin Garcia; Nicholas Poulous’ billiards hall, called The Pool Room; and Club Perla del Caribe restaurant.
Meanwhile, the corner spot, to the right of the apartment stairs, became James Allex’s saloon, which was busted in 1923 for illegal liquor sales; Elmer Pawelsky’s restaurant, also busted, but for selling poor quality milk (hey, it IS Wisconsin); and then by Repeal, Fred Zagozen’s tavern and dance hall.
Though the Bahr family continued to own the building until at least 1911, by 1934 it was owned by Ray H. Callen and soon after by Joe and Anna Levar, who opened their tavern there in 1935 and ran it until Anna’s death in 1957 (Joe passed away in 1939).
Born in Austria, Anna had come to Milwaukee in 1906 and she and Joe operated two other taverns – including one on Florida Street – before running Levar’s Super Bar for 21 years.
Anna – a member of South Slavic Benevolent Union, Sloga and Slovenian Women’s Union – was also a savvy investor and her interests in buildings and loans explains why a South Side tavernkeeper left an estate worth $200,000 in 1957.
After Levar, the building was purchased by Louis Bashell, whose name I suspect you don’t know, unless you are a polka aficionado, in which case, Bashell needs no introduction.
But for the rest of us...
Born in 1914 to Slovenian immigrants who ran a tavern in what is now Conejito’s, Bashell took up the button accordion and became well-known locally as Milwaukee’s polka king for his Slovenian-style polka.
"But the button box was old-fashioned," Bashell said. "My dad bought me a chromatic accordion when I was 11 or 12. I took lessons for about a year from Tony Martinsek. And when I went to house parties with my dad, I would sit down by the accordion man and watch him for hours a night instead of playing with other children. I'd just listen and watch, thinking how someday I was going to do that.”
Though Bashell studied plumbing at Boys’ Tech High, he formed a trio with a drummer and multi-instrumentalist who played clarinet, sax and violin in the 1930s and by the 1940s was leading a quintet that was cutting sides for the indie Pfau Records and Cincinnati-based King Records.
Bashell's “Silk Umbrella Polka” – based on a Slovenian folk song – became a hit in 1947.
"Then RCA Victor came along and hired us to make records for them,” he recalled – quoted in the same article as above – “and we were on the RCA label for almost eight years."
But Bashell was a homebody and didn’t want to tour extensively – though he did perform all around the country – leading RCA to drop him. That, however, didn’t stop Bashell from performing, which he did for seven decades, playing at house parties, local venues like Muskego Beach Ballroom and the Blue Canary, and at clubs, like his family tavern and, later, his own place on 2nd and National.
Local lore says that Bashell’s place was the polka hot spot for a time and hosted all the greats that passed through town, including Frankie Yankovic.
In 1987, he became the first Wisconsinite to earn a National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellowship grant and he continued to perform into the 1990s.
Bashell died in 2008 at the age of 94, after battling Alzheimer’s disease.
Though Bashell continued to own the building on 2nd and National, his own bar only lasted a few years as during the 1960s, the space was occupied by Stan's Bar and by 1969 Richard Kabielski ran Rick’s Party Bar on the first floor and in the basement.
When Rick’s closed not long after a hold-up in 1976, Bashell was still named on permits as the owner and Nancy Ann Sullivan briefly ran Nancy's Party Bar and restaurant there.
Judging by city permits and newspapers, around October 1981 was when Nicholas “Niko” (aka “Nick”) Stathas arrived on the scene and opened the eponymous Niko’s in the corner space.
“Niko had nasty 20-year-old furniture back where the dance floor (for La Cage) would eventually go, set up like a little family room,” Rick Stabler remembered in a Facebook post preserved on the Wisconsin LGBTQ History Project website.
Initially, it seems Niko’s was a pretty standard tavern, but then someone invited Stathas to see the Dead Kennedys perform at Top of the Hill with Milwaukee’s Die Kreuzen and Sacred Order in March 1982 and, according to the Milwaukee Sentinel’s Terry Higgins, he, “became interested in new music.”
"I remember Darren Andress – kind of an unofficial manager for us – coming to The Norman (apartments) one day, excited about this bar called Niko's," recalls Sacred Order frontman Mike L. Podolak. "The Starship and Zak's had closed and the city needed a venue to host our little scene."
So, says Podolak, a group of band guys went to check it out.
"We marched on down across the 6th Street bridge to talk to Nick. I believe it was me and Darren and Dan Kubinski and possibly Erik Tunison. Nick was a character and a half. Drinking shots of ouzo, and very animated."
In “Brick Through the Window: An Oral History of Punk Rock, New Wave and Noise in Milwaukee, 1964-1984,” Podolak added, "(we) assured him we could get a crowd in there. The town was desperate for a venue with a bar.”
The earliest mention I find for bands at Niko’s came in September 1982, when the Oil Tasters – who would perform there a number of times – played.
Other Milwaukee-area bands who played there included The Prosecutors, The Dominoes, Black Zimbabwe, Kafka, Sometimes Y, Einstein’s Riceboys, Sacred Order, Dummy Club, the Wandelz, The Laytons, The Honest Disgrace, Modern Values, Tense Experts, The Frogs, The Crusties, G.F.O., The Deliriants, Mecht Mensch, Ama-Dots, Between Walls, Dark Facade, Ghostly Trio, Belladonna, Couch Flambeau and Madison’s The Appliances and Tar Babies.
Among the national acts that played at Niko’s were San Francisco’s Millions of Dead Cops, Minneapolis' Husker Du, the Phoenix-based Meat Puppets and Boston quartet The Neats. One Facebook commenter recalled a show by either the Circle Jerks or Black Flag drawing attention from local police.
In his Sentinel article, Higgins described the venue – where Jesse Fraker booked the bands – briefly, writing, “A nude woman, cherubic decoration attached to a pillar that divides the front bar from the stage area. At the end of the long bar on the wall near the dance floor is a sign that says ‘Dance at Your Own Risk’.”
Eric Blowtorch, who performed at Niko’s as drummer in The Laytons, recalls that it had a short stage and high, tin ceiling.
Kafka’s Mark Walczynski remembers Stathas’ Doberman puppy being an on-site presence.
“Niko’s was punk rock, but it was the Milwaukee version,” Sacred Order bassist Damian Strigens recalled in “Brick Through the Window.”
“So there was still blue-collar workers there with feathered hair, like me, and punk rockers with tattoos, and the place smelled like clove cigarettes.”
In the same book, Ama-Dots singer Boolah Hayes said, “Niko’s was beautiful. It had a fantastic bar. There was, I think, a mermaid carved into one of the pillars at the end of the bar. It was still in there. No one had destroyed the beautiful bar or the carving. I think we played our last gig at Niko’s.”
Stathas appeared to feel the same way about his patrons and the bands.
“I’ve found the people very pleasant and interesting, although some of them are strange,” he told interviewer Liz Weiss in a public access cable TV special called “Who Am I? The Punk Rock Attitude,” shared in “Brick Through the Window.”
“I one time referred, [sic] ‘It’s Halloween by me all the time,’ but I’ve found that the crowd is a very good group of people. A lot of them come from very fine homes, from Brookfield, Waukesha and the surrounding suburbs.’”
During the Niko’s years, Stathas was one of a number of South Siders vying in a primary race for a vacant aldermanic seat. The 40-year-old Stathas said he hoped to improve relations between the police and the community, which may have been a pointed reference to an incident at the bar during which an off-duty police officer was involved in an altercation.
It wasn’t, however, the first time Stathas ran for a Common Council seat. In 1973, when he ran a pool hall (perhaps Poulos’ in the same building?), he threw his hat in the ring for the 12th District.
“Niko’s was pretty cool, but it never quite jelled as a home base for us,” Oil Tasters bassist Richard LaValliere told the authors of “Brick Through the Window.”
It didn’t appear to have jelled in any long-term way for Stathas, either.
Why Stathas closed Niko’s – which by October 1983 was called Niko’s Last Chance Saloon and no longer had live music – is unclear, but he leased the place to George Prentice, who opened La Cage aux Folles, a gay bar, there in 1984.
Interestingly, an October 1984 newspaper reference to La Cage noted that Stathas still held the venue’s liquor license.
The changes – cosmetically, in ownership, in venue names, etc. – over the years at La Cage have been many and no one is better placed to share those than my colleague and friend Michail Takach, who penned this history of the club.
You can also read this great deep dive at the Wisconsin LGBTQ History Project website.
Dave Wolz bought the venue, but not the building, just about two years ago, from original owner Prentice and his partner Corey Grubb, who had sold the business in 2005 but bought it back in 2017.
“I've kept it basically the same,” Wolz says. “We painted upstairs just recently, in anticipation of the gallery show.”
But, in the spirit of the ever-morphing La Cage, he won’t keep it the same for long.
“I'm planning to do a parklet this spring out front,” he explains. “We got that approved last year, but by the time the approval came through, it was (late in the season) so why bother, right?
“The lower level is what's been called a bistro. We're going to be rebranding it soon. I'll probably rebrand the upstairs, as well. That was called Montage for a while. It became an events space and then they called it the Jackie Roberts Memorial Show Lounge.”
He’s also planning on doing some work on the main floor, like moving the cage and reconfiguring one of the four bars toward the back to create a larger dance floor area.
And, in the spirit of both Niko’s and Louis Bashell’s places here, La Cage may begin hosting local musicians.
“I've been thinking with the closure of some music venues around here, there's a need for music venues,” Wolz says. “So let's open it up; bring some jazz up here Friday. Let's do that and bring some more diversity down to Walker’s Point.
“I am eager to look at doing some things. I think doing this gallery show upstairs is something that's never been done before, so that's going to be kind of cool. We’ll do some things, change things up a bit. Keep it fresh.”
Keeping it fresh, it seems, is the secret to longevity.
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.
