The new multipurpose venue opening next month in Whitefish Bay is the vision of a team of music industry insiders who wanted to provide a midsize place to book local and regional talent. The Argo, housed in the restored Fox Bay Theater, will be up and running in December after an extensive renovation of the 74-year-old art deco building.
The venue features a 700-person capacity entertainment hall, a full-service bar and kitchen, and a flexible ballroom/event space for weddings, festivals, private celebrations and community events. Renovations were completed in less than five months; the $7.5 million redevelopment was supported by about $1 million in tax incremental financing.
“There has been a gap in the Milwaukee market. Many venues have capacities of 900 or above or 300 and below,” says Andrew Coate, chief marketing officer. “That has led to a lot of artists skipping over Milwaukee for Madison, Chicago and Minneapolis. There are a lot of great small, awesome venues and some great large-size venues here. We feel we’re filling that midsize gap.”
The bar and kitchen at the venue is being curated by Dan Jacobs, a five-time James Beard semifinalist and 2024 nominee, Top Chef contestant, and chef and co-owner of Milwaukee restaurants EsterEv and DanDan.
Jacobs plans an eclectic menu at The Argo that expands on his innovative concepts, and you don’t have to attend a show to grab a bite. The restaurant is slated for a soft opening at the same time as the concert house, with a limited temporary menu beginning Dec. 5.
The venue’s first public event on Dec. 5 will feature local artists Chris Haise Band and Zach Pietrini, as well as Nashville-based alt-pop trio VEAUX. The event will also serve as a fundraiser, with profits given to local Milwaukee music programs.
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On Dec. 6, Goran and Morgan, of the acclaimed Milwaukee band alt-rock The Gufs return toheadline The Argo’s formal grand opening party while celebrating the 30th anniversary of the group’s indie phenomenon album “Collide.”
Coate, who has worked with events such as I AM FEST, The Underground Music Showcase and Old Settler’s Music Festival, sees major potential in the Milwaukee music market.
“I have often said that even on a national scale that Milwaukee is a slept-on market,” he says. “One of the things that we’re trying to do is focus on not only bringing national talent through that maybe would have otherwise skipped over Milwaukee [but also] on highlighting the talent that is already here.”
Coate’s partners running The Argo are Josh Bryant and Adam Powers.
Powers, who is chief executive officer, has more than 25 years of experience in the music, entertainment and hospitality industries. “This has been a dream of mine most of my life, and I feel I was born to do this,” he says. “Putting on shows and events is something I genuinely love and I’m good at it.”
Bryant, who is the venue’s chief financial officer, has a background in digital marketing, tech consulting and consumer sales and is principal solutions consultant at Demandbase, a Chicago marketing, advertising and sales firm.
“We’ve lived every angle of this industry. We’ve seen the best of it. We’ve felt the burnout,” Coate says. “The Argo is our way of tipping the scales back toward the good – for our peers, for our city and for the next generation coming up behind us.” For that reason, The Argo also plans to donate $1 from every ticket sold for its shows to support well-being in the music industry, prioritizing programs in mental health, sustainability and longevity.
The Argo has booked more than 40 acts through spring 2026. Highlights from the winter/spring calendar include regional Grateful Dead tribute artists Another One; American Idol contestant Steve Beghun’s “New Year’S teve;” Midwest indie folk trio Violet Wilder; singer/songwriter Gabriel Harris; Minnesota rockers Remo Drive; stalwart bluegrass outfit NewFound Road; seminal punk rockers The Casualties; bluegrass artist Dan Tyminski, and The Pork Tornadoes.
The venue will also hold a regular rotating residency in swing jazz with The Flood, The Sazerac 5, The Micro Brew Swing Band, and Old Sam & The Teardrops. You can find the full calendar here.
The Fox Bay Theater opened in 1951 and served as an anchor for the Silver Spring Drive commercial district before closing in 1992. It later reopened as the Fox Bay Cinema Grill, a movie-and-dining venue. After multiple changes in operators, the venue, like nearly every other movie house in the country, closed again during the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020. It reopened that May – one of the first movie houses in the Milwaukee area to do so – but closed for good in late September 2020.
After a search of spaces in other cities, The Argo’s management team targeted the former Fox Bay Theater for redevelopment.
“When Adam walked through the Fox Bay Theater for the first time, he had the power and the magic to see what this space could be,” Coate says. “He called us and said this is a place we can do something really special with.”
Even with a variety of revenue streams, Coate acknowledged the challenges that come as an independent music venue operator are considerable. Those issues were topics of considerable discussion among attendees and presenters at the National Independent Venue Association conference held in Milwaukee in June. A report released at the conference, which drew about 2,000 NIVA members, showed that a stunning 64% of independent concert stages weren’t profitable in 2024.
“As a business, those challenges are essentially why we are opening three businesses in one place. The goal is to have diverse revenue streams,” Coate says. “We’re very intentional about that. National music tour cycles die out a little bit in the summer. But that’s also when wedding season kicks in, so we’ll be set for that. Also, we have a restaurant that’s open five days a week to bring people through. That’s how we’re addressing the thin margins that the music industry offers.”
The Argo will also focus on having a diverse lineup of music acts.
Coate acknowledges that competition is going to be stiff with the new Landmark Credit Union Live venue, as well as established stalwarts like the Pabst Theater Group. While these venues are not in direct competition with The Argo, they have bigger advertising budgets as well as name recognition, and for that reason, Coate and his co-founders are “going to have to do diverse programming, not just [have] cool bands that we like.”
“It will still be a challenge,” he says. “It’ll take a few years for us to establish that we’re a destination rather than just a new venue opening up.”
The Argo management team is hoping that bringing new life to the former theater will spark additional development and bring more businesses to the Silver Spring Drive Business District.
We want to add to what is happening on the street and hope to amplify this great community,” Powers says. “Whitefish Bay is not only a great place to live but also a great place to have a night or day out, and we hope more new businesses follow.”
