Circle A Café Celebrates 20 Years

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An old-school television tuned to static provides the first clue that Circle A Café is not your average tavern. Some bars celebrate Happy Hour, Circle A takes it a step further with Ecstatic Hour, offering the first patron through the door a free shot.

“We lived up on Humboldt in a rental duplex and were looking for our own place. After living in California where we couldn’t afford a vacant lot, Milwaukee seemed like the land of opportunity,” Warwick Seay recalls of the origins of Circle A Café, located at 932 E. Chambers St. The humble Riverwest corner bar in the middle of the block turns 20 with live music from Voot Warnings and The High Chairs on Oct. 30. facebook.com/pages/Circle-A/117206775009251

“I used to walk the railroad right-of-way on my way to Center St. or to basement shows and always passed this bar that was called The Likely Story.” One night coming back Seay recalls thinking this is the place he has his eye on. “I tried the door—the lights were all off and it was open.” He ventured inside and immediately began visualizing a future for the building built in 1897.

The place was not for sale but Seay contacted a realtor who helped work out a deal with the owner. The original plan in 2000 fell though on closing day because the railroad would not lease the right-of-way which Seay wanted for off-street parking. Months went by and he contacted the owner again and renegotiated the sale. Since then, Jennifer Mueller has run the bar side of the operation. Halloween 2000 they moved in and officially opened Halloween 2001.

“We had a great party. Jim Klisch [Lakefront Brewery] was dressed as a cop—so convincingly, he stood at the bar scowling. If I recall, they were still down the street and rolled a barrel of Lakefront to us.”

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Circle A originally was open Tuesday through Sunday but business was too slow and settled into the familiar Friday through Sunday routine. The club’s unofficial mascot, Seay’s dog Hazelnut, was recently succeeded by Filbert.

It is no surprise that the pandemic has affected the entertainment industry, even a Mom-and-Pop outfit like Circle A. They did not previously take credit cards. Mueller says they started in 2020 for contactless transactions and also because her sister closed her business and Jennifer was given the credit card processing equipment.

Music Is The Focus

Walk into Circle A and you have stepped into a living museum of music. The walls are covered with vintage posters, many from the golden era of San Francisco punk. Records, album covers and musical instruments hang from the ceiling. The vintage coin-operated juke box is stocked with some of the best and most obscure 45s, along with local gems and a few mystery selections where patrons guessing correctly win a free drink.

Mueller proudly shows off a stash of 45s she just picked up. “Today I got Blondie, Tom Petty, Arthur Conley, something from Yugoslavia and Ramsey Lewis’ ‘The In Crowd.’”

Behind the bar, a rotating lineup of local DJs regularly spin sets of music selected from their collections, hauling in crates of vinyl. But the real prize in the crackerjacks is the Live at 8 shows. Initially, live music was presented at 10 p.m. but complaints from neighbors led to a compromise and started a tradition.

“We decided OK, the noise ordinance ends at 10 p.m. so we decided on music from 8-10 p.m. We also realized that we were not competing so much with bigger clubs. People could come here and go there afterwards,” Seay notes. He also has learned the early start time benefits the demographic of music fans of a certain age.  In some cases, musicians even have played Circle A and finished early enough to play a later gig elsewhere.

With a capacity of 49, the venue blurs the notion of performers on a stage and listeners in the audience. In fact, there is no stage and a front row table means a seat a few feet away from a singer’s microphone. Historically, the club has given bands 100% of the door.

Early on, the late Paul Setser shepherdexpress.com/music/local-music/milwaukee-musician-paul-setser-passes-on/ began booking bands and running sound for Circle A as well as working the door, spinning as DJ Sextor and performing with a number of bands.

No one can recall when he actually started. “He blew in like the wind,” Mueller says. They plan to have a memorial for Setser near the entrance where his presence was ubiquitous. Seay makes a point to emphasize how integral a part of the Circle A family Setser was. “He was indispensable,” Seay says. Mueller adds they will ease back into live music with Saturday shows.

If These Walls Could Talk

Circle A’s website is clear: PHILOSOPHY - Circle A is all about music & fun. We treat our patrons as adults and expect the reciprocal attitude and behavior.

Seay says he was so tickled they made it through the first anniversary that he sprung for a big-time act. “I called Jay Tiller and he said, ‘Three hundred bones gets the Flambeau off the Couch!’” The club has also hosted Plasticland, Lou and Peter Berryman and one New Year’s Eve saxophonist James Chance performed and walked the bar. Derek Pritzl’s songwriter showcases offered guitar pulls for some of the city’s best songwriters.

But more importantly, the club serves a place for up-and-coming bands to get valuable experience—from solo acoustic performers to bands where ear plugs are a good idea. Seay says he felt Circle A was “getting too big for its britches” when they had to start charging $7 at the door.

The club also marked history in 2006 when Greg Cartwright played a solo show. In town to produce an album for The Goodnight Loving, the Reigning Sound leader performed an afternoon concert to a room of sardines. The line to get in was down the sidewalk past Bliffert’s Lumber.  

“A half hour before start, this place was more packed than it has been since,” Seay recalls. “We took every stick of furniture out of this place except for the booth.” The concert was recorded and released as a vinyl lp on the local Dusty Medical Records label.

Mueller and Seay are looking forward to getting things back on track. Seay gives props to Milwaukee for being helpful and finding ways to make things work. “The state and the city have really come through for small businesses,” Mueller says of the support they have received during the pandemic.