READ MORE FROM OUR DIVE BARS FEATURE HERE.
Mandy Timm started the “West Allis Bar Adventure” note on her phone on Jan. 26, 2023, on her visit to Scooter’s Tap.
The retired West Allis schoolteacher is meticulous that way.
By mid-August 2024, Timm and her friend Julie Myszkowski had ducked into 42 West Allis drinking establishments – many of them dives. Each gets a rating – thumbs-up or -down – along with notes such as, “bathrooms – hard no.” Tap City was lauded for $4.25 mini-pitchers. “A lot of these places have just amazing deals,” Timm says.
It’s time to pick your Milwaukee favorites for the year!
Forty-two bars might sound like a lot, but Timm still has a lot of work left to do. It seems like nearly every block in Stallis, even in its tightly packed neighborhoods, has a bar, and a vast majority of them read as shot-and-a-beer spots. As of August, there were 135 Class B tavern licenses issued by the city – 12 for every square mile.
One reason West Allis has so many dive bars is its industrial roots, which date back to 1900 and what became the Allis-Chalmers Corp. The company was once known as the largest builder of gas engines in the United States and later a manufacturer of tractors.
“You can’t throw a rock without hitting a corner bar in West Allis,” says dive bar owner Jay Stamates, whose seven Milwaukee-area bars include Schotskis in West Allis, which he took over two years ago. “I felt like a carpetbagger because I’m not from West Allis. And West Allis let me know that I was a carpetbagger.”
Enter a spot such as Camp Karma at Becher and 70th, with the sign on the front door warning not to step on the owner’s dog and with decor from “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” and you might not instantly feel welcomed. But ask about the stuffed animals filling two shelves behind the bar, and you might be invited to play a game of dice (in which the stuffies are used).
Karma might stand out a bit. “When I think about West Allis, even though there’s a lot of new places, it’s still super traditional,” Timm says.
So far, she’s had no bad experiences – even dives that look scary on the outside aren’t on the inside – and just one disappointment. “Our one regret,” Timm says, “was we didn’t get to Slurp-N-Burp before it closed.”
