Last week, we ran the second round of our wings challenge, which pitted Club Garibaldi's flavor-packed examples against those of Elsa's on the Park. The result was astounding.
The day after the story ran, I stopped in at Club Garibaldi, on the corner of Russell and Superior, in Bay View and received a hero's welcome. I can't remember for sure, but I think maybe co-owner Joe Dean might have hugged me. (But maybe that was just a dream!)
That's because once the article appeared on the site, there was a run on wings at G-Bals.
When I walked in, I was told there was a single order of wings left in stock and that the previous day had gone about the same. And, best of all, most of the folks coming in -- other than the regulars, presumably -- said they heard about the awesome wings at OnMilwaukee.com.
During my stay there Thursday night, three people approached me to say they read the site and a couple said they were there to try the wings that we overwhelmingly chose in that wings challenge. Another told me he enjoyed our brief run of OnMilwaukee.com Recommends blurbs on WISN-TV 12 News a couple years back.
Stay tuned as we plot out a fun way to pit the two semifinalists -- Points East Pub and Club Garibaldi, two bars with intertwined histories -- in a winner takes all Milwaukee wings challenge championship round.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
