Double D's Pub and Eatery plans to reopen in Hales Corners after the Mukwonago tavern's fire last year
The sun’s beating down on a late Friday afternoon, and Darren Michalek is wielding a weed-whacker outside of a restaurant that’s been vacant since March 2020’s COVID lockdowns.
Michalek is sprucing up the former Braun’s Powerhouse in Hales Corners to move in his beloved family business: Double D’s Pub and Eatery.
Before this year, Michalek had no idea he’d be moving Double D’s from Mukwonago to its new home at 5171 S. 108th St. That was until a fire started by an electrical cord brought the Michalek family back to square one on Nov. 26 last year.
“It was devastating at first,” Michalek said. “I held it together pretty well until my oldest son, who's 19 —who's been working there since he was 12 — he came out and he started to cry, and then I lost it.”
Michalek remained optimistic that Double D’s could stay at its original location, and saw the fire as an opportunity to rebuild. However, financial restraints got in the way.
“When it came down to the way the economy is going, I only had roughly a million dollars in (insurance) coverage,” Michalek said. “It was over 2 million to rebuild.”
The empty Braun’s Powerhouse sat less than a mile away from his home, so he called up the realtor’s number that was on a sign outside of the building.
“We closed on the 21st of (July),” he said.
Double D’s had hundreds of loyal customers in Mukwonago, many pulling their boats right up to the restaurant on Lake Beulah. Michalek is certain, however, that there are plenty of advantages to the tavern’s new location.
“We're going to really tie into the community here with the Whitnall High School, the Whitnall youth programs,” Michalek said. “We're going to really tie into the community, do a lot of charity work, a lot of sponsorship work with the baseball program, the football program, the basketball program, and just the athletics programs in general.”
Double D’s is no stranger to charity work, he said. At the previous location, they “gave out between ten and $20,000 a year to local charities and sponsorships,” he said.
As far as Double D’s family-friendly atmosphere, drinks and pub food, Michalek says everything will remain mostly the same. One of their busiest nights was always Friday.
“We do fish fries, which were very popular at the old location,” he said. “We were doing 250 fish fries on a Friday.”
Michalek hopes that Double D’s can be local families’ go-to spot to watch Packers, Brewers and Bucks games, and a place to support local high school teams. His tentative goal is to open the new location by Sep. 1, in time for football season.
“I'm hoping with all the traffic here and then all the ties we've built into the community, that this could be a year-round, much busier location (than the one in Mukwonago),” he said.
In the upcoming months, Michalek hopes to hire local artists to repaint the outside and cover the inside with local sports memorabilia.
Quinn Clark can be emailed at QClark@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @Quinn_A_Clark.
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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Beloved Mukwonago tavern plans to reopen in Hales Corners after fire
