Bar Time

Photo courtesy of Hilton Milwaukee.  For the life of me I can’t recall the last time I was at a hotel bar for purely personal reasons. That is, until I found myself at the recently renovated Monarch Lounge in the Hilton Milwaukee (509 W. Wisconsin Ave.) one Friday after work. My co-worker and I drove to the hotel and parked in the adjacent lot. (Parking validation is offered for stays less than 2 hours.) Once we navigated the families and mountains of luggage in front of the concierge, we walked up a small set of stairs to enter the lounge.…

Established in 1969, The Tracks Tavern (1020 E. Locust St.) is named for the Beerline Railroad that once passed by the building. But conventional wisdom has long held that Tracks is too far west for the “won’t cross the river” crowd (you know who you are) and “too East Side” for certain jingoistic Riverwesters (you know who you are, too). So what’s Milwaukee’s friendliest sports bar to do? It helps to be inviting. At Tracks, it’s easy to sit down and watch a Monday Night Football game, or Game 7 of the NLCS (or both), with a room full of…

Hotel Foster. First and foremost, thanks to all who submitted entries to this year’s Bar Time blogger contest. There were plenty of submissions to choose from and we put the finest up to a vote. You voted, told your friends to vote, and passed around the link more times than we could keep track of. For all of this, we were ecstatic.  But then we hit a roadblock.  The Milwaukee Magazine staff could simply not decide on one person to take up the Bar Time blogging torch. And this torch is no small task. There are always new bars opening…

The submissions are in and we like what we see. But we need your input to help us pick the winner of this year’s Bar Time blogger contest. Read through the submissions and vote (top right corner of your screen) for your favorite blogger. Then leave the rest to us.  Voting will be open until midnight on Wednesday, Oct. 10. We’ll announce the winner Friday, Oct. 12, so stay tuned.  1. Dave Nelsen reviews Hooligan’s.  For as long as I’ve been drinking, plenty of bars have populated the area around Farwell and North, and they all have their merits. However, when…

You may ask what Milwaukee and cargo shorts have in common. Cargo shorts (aside from being the bane of the fashion world’s existence) are brimming with pockets, each possessing the ability to hold something none of the others do. Milwaukee may be one entity, but the pockets that are a part of it—all of its many neighborhoods—each add to the city in their own unique way. But we all know pants with many pockets are sure to have a hidden pocket or two. Or perhaps you’ve put something amazing or valuable in a pocket, only to find it later and…

Homer Simpson once said, “Friends are the bacon bits in the salad bowl of life.” This tasty philosophy couldn’t be more true and even more reflective of the power of the beloved meat candy, bacon. The salty shavings of pork back have seen resurgence in pop-culture in recent years with various bacon festivals, world’s largest bacon this and that, fast-food bacon ice cream, bacon-booze, and the extreme gluttony of the bacon-worshiping Epic Meal Time group. With the popularity of the salty meat at such an all-time, smoky high, it’s no surprise that an area establishment has sandwiched their name with…

Live music-loving venue The Up and Under Pub welcomed a new bar to the family but a few short months ago, allowing patrons of the Brady Street locale to have an excuse for a jaunt down to Bay View. Setting up shop in what was formerly the Bay View Brew Haus, The Down and Over Pub (2535 S. Kinnickinnic Ave.) might be easily overlooked, were it not for the large red sign featuring a black guitar head beneath the white type and treble clef. The giant, light-colored brick building, once a Masonic temple, boasts no exterior adornments. Upon jiggling the…

The Hotch Spot (1813 E. Kenilworth Pl.) formerly Hotch-A-Do, has reimagined and reintroduced its image to Milwaukee’s East Side. Just off the intersection of North Ave. and Oakland Ave., the building is encased in floor-to-ceiling windows allowing the rejuvenated interior to be showcased and rediscovered by the perpetual pedestrian traffic out front. I have to admit, I never met the Hotch-A-Do, so my experience in the Hotch Spot is that of wide-eyed, unaffected freshman walking into the chemistry lab for the first time … very submissive. Anyway, getting in the door was the easy part, deciding where to sit proved…

Suburban Shorewood may not normally be a mecca for Milwaukee nightlife, but this village now has something that no neighboring suburb does — its very own beer garden. Brought to you by Hans Weissgerber III of downtown’s Old German Beer Hall, the Estabrook Park beer garden is a welcome oasis from the city streets, where one can be transported into a time and place far from the Midwest. Winding your way back through the trees, you’ll pass sporting fields, playgrounds and a dog park, wondering all the while how — and where — a beer garden could be settled amidst…