Bars come and go, but Walters’ on North, 6930 W. North Ave., in East Tosa, seems to be forever.

Opened in 1942 as the Tosa Tap, Walters’ has survived wars, a devastating fire and ownership changes to become one of Wauwatosa’s longest-running taverns.

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Co-owner Jasmine Li O’Brien has some idea why.

“The regulars,” she says on a weekday afternoon at 2 p.m., with a dozen people seated around the bar. “Everyone just has memories of when they used to come in here. So I think the stories help.

“My mom was ecstatic when we bought this place. She used to come here in the ‘70s and play pool.”

By then, Walters’ had already been open for decades.

The bar occupies the corner spot and an adjacent space in a single-story retail building that runs about half the block and has multiple storefronts, including ones housing a bike shop and a tax prep business.

Though it doesn’t look like it now, with its ‘70s brick facade, the building dates to around 1926, when it was constructed to house, in the future Walters’ corner space, a National Tea Company grocery store and butcher shop, and other businesses.

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National Tea was founded on a different North Avenue – in Chicago – in 1899 and its business exploded. By 1920 it had roughly 160 stores and was doing nearly $13 million in sales. A decade later it had a whopping 600 stores in Chicagoland and 1,000 more locations around the country. Sales had rocketed to $90 million.

The Depression didn’t do the business any favors, however, nor did competition.

By 1938, an A&P had opened directly across the street on North Avenue in Tosa and there were also other butchers and fruit markets nearby. National Tea itself had another store on 64th and North.

When A&P opened a much larger store – in what is now a paint shop – on 73rd and North, the time had come for this National Tea location, which was one of four in Tosa (the others on Bluemound Road and Harwood Avenue).

In the meantime, Russell J. Walters was working at the Sinclair filling station on 11th and Wisconsin that he leased from the oil company with his brother Roy, who ran it until the mid-to-late 1940s, though the station endured under the ownership of Quirk & Gates until at least 1967.

It seems that the Tosa Tap opened sometime in mid-1942 because while it’s listed in the November 1942 Milwaukee phone directory, it wasn’t included in the March 1942 book.

Although I presume Walters opened Tosa Tap, of that I’m not 100 percent sure.

He first appears as the owner of it in the 1946 Wauwatosa City Directory, which also records that he was still working at the gas station. But it seems there were no Tosa directories published from 1942-45 (or at least not that I can find, likely due to the war), so there’s a bit of a hole in the record.

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Walters would remain a long time at the bar, which seems to have used a variety of names, including the R.J. Walters Tavern in 1957, back to the Tosa Tap 1959-70, and Walters on North from 1971, though city directories from 1974 to ‘78 call it Walters Tap.

Walters was a Tosa native, born on St. James Street in 1908, to Arthur Walters, a local barber born in Milwaukee, and Agnes Reinsch, who was born in Green Lake County.

In 1910, the family was living with Agnes’ mother, German-born Emma Reinsch, at her home on Van Buren Street in Milwaukee, along with Agnes’ brother Eddie and two lodgers. Arthur, at this time, was cutting hair in a local hotel barber shop.

But a decade later, the census records the Walters clan in Chicago where Arthur was working as a truck salesman.

Back in Milwaukee, living on North 50th Street, near Bluemound, in 1930, the now 22-year-old Russell was still with his family, including his 15-year-old brother Roy. There’s no occupation noted for Russell on this census, but Arthur was employed as a car salesman.

In 1937, he married Bernice Skowronski and their son Wayne was born in 1939.

How Russell came to enter the saloon business is unknown, though years of researching bars has served up no shortage of tavernkeepers arriving behind the bar without previous experience and just as many leaving the bar business for completely unrelated jobs.

But it seems that there was at least some overlap between Walters’ two careers for a time.

There is little record of the first few decades in the life of the Tosa Tap, aside from the occasional newspaper reference to a holdup (1956) and burglaries (1957 and ‘66) and a couple fatal heart attacks (1966 and ‘67).

Tosa city permits show that the interior of the bar was remodeled at a cost of $7,000 in 1964, but beyond heating and plumbing, those documents don’t describe the work undertaken.

At some point, likely during the early 1970s, Russell’s son Wayne took over the business. In 1972, Wayne was identified in a newspaper article as “co-owner,” without naming his partner.

The article, however, is a snapshot of a different era, carrying the headline, “Tosa Bartender is Speedy and Looks Good in Hotpants.”

In the Journal story, which was published with photos of its subject, 26-year-old bartender Sandra Le Gaertner, writer Ray McBride points out that, “In stolid Wauwatosa, there is a comely young woman bartender who can perform her job with any of the men and often has operated the tavern alone.”

Referencing the “women’s liberation movement” and changes in the law that allowed women to seek a bartending license, McBride continued...

“‘She’s as good as any man I’ve hired,’ says Wayne Walter, one of the co-owners. ‘She’s been good for business, too.’ In effect, Walter’s (sic) has two different clienteles, the older men who drop in for a drink on the way home from work, and a young, swinging group who come in at night. The rock and roll music is on then. Both groups seem to cotton to Sandy. She banters with them easily and she is good to look at.

“Sometimes she even wears hotpants and says she wears them for comfort. ‘How many attractive slacks can you buy? If I feel that I look good in something, and it’s comfortable, I’ll wear it.’ Sandy says she’s in bartending because she loves people. She has held other types of jobs, but likes bartending best. ‘I like men  more than women. Men are easier to get along with. Men discuss general topics more than women. Women, myself included, are sometimes too critical.’ She added, however, that she gets along fine with the many women who come into Walter’s.

“‘I’m not an advocate of women’s lib. I think a woman should be a woman. How many good women mechanics are there? Men are better than women in engineering. Women, of course, are better in some things, like cosmetology. ... I don’t feel like a novelty. If a woman’s good at something she has nothing to worry about’.”

When I tell O’Brien about this story, she laughs. One can’t help but wonder what McBride would’ve made of a woman behind the bar at Walters’ who also owns the place.

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Just a couple months later, Walters’ was back in the headlines, as neighbors contested the bar’s license renewal, citing problems with young drinkers who had just earned the right to drink when the legal age was lowered to 18.

“Teenagers who gained instant adulthood last March but can’t hold their beer have given Glenn Hardy a bad headache,” wrote the Journal (perhaps Hardy was Wayne’s previously unidentified co-owner). “Hardy, 30, an industrial arts teacher at West Division High School, is vice president of Walter’s on North. Tuesday he was before the Wauwatosa Common Council License Committee. So were about 40 neighbors who voiced loud complaints about noise and other goings-on of teenagers who patronized the place.

“Hardy confessed that some complaints were accurate. ‘Without this we had a nice business. Now we’ve got a lot of headaches ... But the state says you have to serve them.’ Complaints ranged from love making outside the place to drag races with squealing tires.”

Ultimately, the bar’s license was renewed with conditions limiting capacity, barring package sales after 9 p.m. and requiring a private guard in the parking lot after 10 p.m.

A check-in with Tosa police that September found that the woes had ended, though the licenses committee kept the restrictions on for the time being.

Similar problems occurred and were addressed in 1977.

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Two years later, now with George “Butch” Grbich on board as Wayne’s partner, the owners hired Pioneer Buildings to make alterations to the building, adding the brick exterior and faux mansard-style roof overhang we see today.

Sadly, some of that work had to be redone after a devastating 1993 fire that caused $250,000 damage to the east end of the building, destroying the Soccer Shoppe, Laabs Parts & Service and the Bell Clock Service, which lost 500 clocks, many of them antique and valuable.

Walters’ and a resale shop were damaged.

Fortunately, the only injuries – to two firefighters – were minor.

Grbich told the Journal, “I’m putting it back up, it’s a matter of time.”

“I guess we’ll just go in there in the morning and see what’s left,” added 13-year employee and manager Jimmy Wilkinson, who had arrived at Walters’ to shovel snow one day in 1980 and never left.

“I sure hope the bar is going to be OK. But we’ll be back.”

And, indeed, they were, the only evidence on the facade that part of the structure was rebuilt is a nearly imperceptible seam in the brickwork.

Walters’ continued on as a neighborhood favorite, with taco nights and a host of regulars, including the Tosa Carolers, who every holiday season used the bar as a rehearsal spot and meeting place before heading out to spread cheer.

In 2003, Wayne Walters passed away at just 64 years old. His father, Russell, aka “Big Jim,” died at age 96 the following year.

Over the years, working as a cook, bartender and manager, Wilkinson met his wife at Walters’ and later, their daughter would work there for 12 years, too.

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Then, in 2023, Grbich announced he was selling Walters’ after 50 years there. Wilkinson, who had been working at the bar for 43 years was also leaving.

“It’s been a fun ride. But it’s time for a change,” Wilkinson told OnMilwaukee’s Molly Snyder, who noted that Grbich, by then living in Door County, had listed the bar and building for sale a few years earlier.

"There will be crying. I won’t miss the place, but I will really miss the people."

The new owners are service industry veteran Jasmine O’Brien, along with Robert Deiss and Christopher Trudeau, who, O’Brien says, own or co-own a number of other bars, including, among others, Dukes On Water, Brickyard Pub, Crooked Crow and Pine Knot in St. Germain.

Walters’ closed on April 30, 2023 so that it could get a refresh ... but not too much.

“The wood floors we changed,” says O’Brien. “(We) put a bunch of new TVs in, bunch of coolers, new coolers, the carpet’s gone.

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They’ve added 12 new tap lines, too, with a range of domestic, import and local craft beers.

“Just kind of upgraded, but we kept everything generally the same, though. It still has the same vibe. It's awesome in here.”

Much like it’s always been, Walters’ has two crowds.

“It's primarily younger at night,” O’Brien says, “but during the day it's blue collar workers coming in to have lunch and just the regulars here – a lot of construction workers, a lot of home improvement people.”

Also as in the past, Walters’ has its grill right behind the bar and serves food later than many nearby places. The grill is hot until 10:30 on weeknights and midnight on weekends. It opens daily at 11 a.m. for lunch.

O’Brien has launched Comfort Food Mondays, with different comfort food specials, taco night is Thursday and there’s a Friday fish fry, of course.

“And then Tuesdays pull tab Tuesday, every drink you get a free pull tab,” she says. “Wednesday is wings, so today six for $6, 12 for $10. Buffalo bourbon, garlic parmesan, Jamaican jerk, lemon pepper, Cajun, Nashville hot and sweet Thai chili.”

Since it’s a Wednesday when I visit, I decide to give the wings a spin, getting three Buffalo and three lemon pepper.

Fried and then grilled, the wings are big and juicy and the flavors bright – at a price that can’t be beat. I think I’ve found a new Tosa wing night.

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I’ll grab a bar stool next to the regulars.

“We have super, super, super long time regulars,” O’Brien says. “Vern, he's 90. He used to come in here every day, but he fell. He has a spot right there. Connie, Jerry and Cho come in all the time, every day, Stan. And then they're like 75, 80.

“They're all sticking around.”