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"I always felt like I was coming into his rec room," he said. KV was a customer for many years before going to work for Joe. Shia Rodriguez said Joe insisted that they greet customers with a handshake and count out their change on the bar. Two friendly bartenders were mixing drinks when I stopped at This Is It! last week. That was after Joe got out of the Air Force. It's fitting, I'd say, that Joe met his wife, Karen, at a bar, the long-gone Beneath the Street in Milwaukee. Things are a lot more accepted and open now than they were." "When I was older, people thought it was really cool. Years ago there were people who refused to talk to her father when they found out he ran a gay bar, Sarah said. His other daughter, Sarah Freiheit, recalls going with her father to Radio Doctors to pick out records for the bar's jukebox, which was replaced last year with a digital music system. Joe worked a lot and until late at night, but made family dinner a priority. She also remembers nasty people keying and spray-painting her father's car outside the bar.
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His daughter, Jessica Brehm, remembers as a child being at the bar on weekend mornings to help count down the cash registers and drink soda from the dispensers, but rarely went there as an adult. Joe tried to keep his work at the bar and his family life separate. And the bar continues to attract a younger clientele later in the evening. The leather half-booths lining one wall have been replaced with tables and chairs. George, who is 31, helped Joe bring some aspects of the business into the 21st century, including a stronger presence on social media. Up until last month, a pay phone on the wall still worked. The walls are carpeted in red, and the bar has a cushioned elbow rail, just the way Joe and June liked it. The place is dimly lit, windowless and small, the size of perhaps two bowling lanes side by side. You will experience attitude and shade from your bar staff and fellow patrons. Rebecca was amused by the bar's list of tongue-in-cheek house rules, including: "This is a gay bar. The bar is a crossroads of humanity, said Abby Shaddox, who enjoyed an after-work drink last week with co-worker Rebecca Augustine, who both happen to be straight.
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Joe grieved customers lost to AIDS, and he was a comforting presence when the gay community struggled to heal after it was victimized by serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer.
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Paul Williams, co-president of the board of the Milwaukee LGBT Community Center, put it this way, "It wasn't just a business. That's the way he lived his life," she said. "When he said he didn't judge people, it wasn't just a politically correct thing to say. He helped sponsor the history exhibit at PrideFest every year. She is an advocate in the community and said she could always count on him to support causes. "Lesbians, gay guys, drag queens, straight people, African-Americans, Hispanics - it was always pretty much everyone is welcome," said Stephanie Hume, a friend of Joe for many years. Now, there's a flag bearing the rainbow logo and bar name. Wells St., near Cathedral Square Park, though for years there was no sign out front, dating from the era when being gay meant exercising great caution. He and his mother before him created an effortless mixing pot here at 418 E. Joe, who lived in Franklin and had survived four kinds of cancer, was diagnosed last August with ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease. I will make sure it keeps on going for another 50."Ĭustomers and old friends packed This Is It! on Sunday to remember Joe as a great friend of Milwaukee's gay community and a welcome face behind the bar for many years. I'm the custodian of a huge amount of history and their legacy. "Joe and June had this bar for the first 50 years, or almost 50. "I put it this way anytime anybody asks me," said George Schneider, handpicked by Joe in 2012 to co-own the bar. The bar, or lounge as Joe liked to call it, will go on. Her son, Joe Brehm, who took over in 1981 and continued her commitment to friendly service and an inclusive atmosphere, died April 3. She opened This Is It! in downtown Milwaukee in 1968 and soon after welcomed a customer base made up mostly of gay men whose nearby tavern had closed. The bigger wonder might be that the bar was started by his mother. You may be surprised that Wisconsin's oldest continuously operating gay bar was run by a guy with a wife and two kids who assembled for family dinner at home every night.