Veteran club owner Ian Pesch is heading in an entirely new direction when he opens his new bar, Liquor Sweets, this weekend. One of the founders of the old Globe East and West, as well as the Rock Shop, Pesch is looking to reach a bigger audience with his new nightclub venture.
Liquor Sweets, 3000 S. 13th St., will feature a dance club, a sports bar and perhaps most interestingly, a huge room upstairs for live music. But unlike his clubs of the past, Pesch says Liquor Sweets will bring in mostly cover bands and will play top 40 music, though he plans to occasionally book rock acts, too.
"Really what brought me here is the unique set-up of the space," says Pesch, who is taking over a space formally housed by the Sports Connection sports bar. "There's really nothing like it in Milwaukee."
"We're going to do all the regional cover bands, for sure, which is definitely different than what I've always done at my live venues. I've always stayed away from cover bands. That's kind of a big change for me, as I've always had a passion for original music."
Pesch stresses that he'll still open up the club for hard rock, "but it won't be my main flavor." The cover band theme makes sense for one major reason, Pesch says.
"It's a bigger section of the pie chart."
And, if the name of the bar sounds familiar, it's because Liquor Sweets was also the name of a club on Hwy. 100 and Layton Avenue in the '80s. Pesch says he couldn't come up with a name that encompasses all the aspects of the new club, and in talking to Liquor Sweets' old owner and Pesch's mentor, he received permission to bring the name back to life.
But the name is where the similarities end.
The 10,000-sq. ft. club, which holds more than 400 people, is divided into three sections: a sports bar in the front, a dance club in the back, and the live music venue on the second floor. The upstairs room will also be home to special events like live wrestling. The audio is being handled by veteran Milwaukee sound guy, Brian Miller, who works the Miller Stage at Summerfest, as well as a number of venues around town. He also ran the the P.A. at The Globe, from 1994 to its closing in 2003.
This room, while cavernous, should sound good when filled with people, Miller says.
"For soundproofing, nothing beats putting people in there," he says.
The only bar of its type in the neighborhood, Pesch says he expects Milwaukeeans to travel from all sides of town for the live music. It's a straight shot on Oklahoma Avenue, he says, to Bay View or points west. On 13th Street, it's not far from the freeway, either.
Says Pesch, "We're 10 minutes from everywhere. We can get diversity, from people who like the band, while their friends are at the sports bar watching NASCAR."
And it's absolutely nothing like his other biggest club, The Globe.
However, he saved the original Globe East outdoor sign and hopes to find a place for it in Liquor Sweets sometime soon.
"It's like night and day, and everything I could ask for," says Pesch. "It's why I'm back in the business. The opportunity presented itself to me, and it's a unique situation to have a licensable venue that's already built in Milwaukee. You just don't find them."
Pesch has done most of the remodeling in the club section, carving out a DJ booth and converting a kitchen into another bar. But the rest of the property -- especially the upstairs area that was known as the Plasma Room until the '60s -- has stayed largely the same.
"It's just a beautiful 1880s hay barn," says Pesch. "All of the old, South Side Polish weddings were up there. They did wrestling up there. We'll do ICW Wrestling there starting on Dec. 14.
"There will be a dress code. Once your inside, it won't feel like 13th and Oklahoma."
At first, Liquor Sweets will have music on Fridays and Saturdays, with an open jam in January. In February, Pesch says he'll try a country music night, too.
Liquor Sweets opens this Friday, Nov. 30. Cherry Pie is the first band booked on Saturday, Dec. 1.
Andy is the president, publisher and founder of OnMilwaukee. He returned to Milwaukee in 1996 after living on the East Coast for nine years, where he wrote for The Dallas Morning News Washington Bureau and worked in the White House Office of Communications. He was also Associate Editor of The GW Hatchet, his college newspaper at The George Washington University.
Before launching OnMilwaukee.com in 1998 at age 23, he worked in public relations for two Milwaukee firms, most of the time daydreaming about starting his own publication.
Hobbies include running when he finds the time, fixing the rust on his '75 MGB, mowing the lawn at his cottage in the Northwoods, and making an annual pilgrimage to Phoenix for Brewers Spring Training.
