I had my last Monte Cristo sandwich a decade ago or so. It was at the Glass Menagerie, the atrium restaurant at the M&M Club on the corner of Water and Erie. Actually, I had my first Monte Cristo there over a decade before. And, also just a decade ago, in the early hours of May 14, 2006, that historic Milwaukee gay bar, to the strains of “For the Good Times,” closed its doors for the last time.
When Bob Schmidt with partners Leo Peters and Jime Moes bought the old 1904 Pabst Brewing Co. Saloon and opened the M&M Club in spring of 1976 (its official opening was, symbolically, on the Fourth of July of that bicentennial year), its all-welcoming diversity happened naturally. Although primarily a men’s bar, M&M’s had an ultimately diverse clientele of LGBTs as well as their straight friends and families. I recall one very crowded Thursday evening (it was “Double Bubble”, the club’s 2-for-1 night and, as always, packed), a man standing next to me, apparently in hopes of ingratiating himself, looked down demonstrably at some women seated around the bar’s piano (it had a built-in wrap-around sill for drinks) and asked, “They let those people in here?” I don’t know if he meant women, lesbians or African Americans. But I looked at him and answered, “Yes, they let everyone in here.”
And for that inadvertent inclusion, M&M’s was Milwaukee’s true community center. Its accommodating staff engaged in the full spectrum of activities from sponsoring sports teams (its softball team won the Wreck Room Classic in 1980) to holding fundraisers during the HIV/AIDS crisis. I once got a free flu shot there in its second floor space above the bar. That upper room had once served as the owner’s apartment. Later, depending on the need, it would provide a community meeting room, a sheepshead parlor, a banquet hall or a makeshift clinic. Its bartenders Rona and BooBoo became community icons. Aside from adding to the inviting ambiance, they organized events and outings. Rona helped found the city’s gay chorus.
And, there was the restaurant. It started off as “The Sideboard” with a limited selection but soon was renovated into a comfortable, window-clad atrium with a patio (designed by local gay artist Robert Uyvari) and offered a full menu. Now called The Glass Menagerie, it became renowned for its Spaghetti Wednesdays and, of course, a traditional Milwaukee Friday fish fry.
Meanwhile, back in the bar, there would be live entertainment three nights a week. M&M’s had it all; to paraphrase Winston Churchill, never had one bar done so much for so many. But then, after three decades, in May of 2006 the club would suddenly closed. In the face of the Third Ward’s gentrification, it would portend the end of the LGBT community’s presence in the Third Ward.
Now, on the 10th anniversary of its closure, M&Ms is holding a reunion in its old location. It takes place Sunday, May 8 at noon. Bob Schmidt will be in attendance. I expect we might hear “For the Good Times” once again.
