SHEBOYGAN - While the building has undergone some remodeling over the past 100 years, the neon "Suscha’s" sign can still be seen glowing by passersby and drivers at nighttime.

This year, Suscha’s Bar, 1054 Pennsylvania Ave., is celebrating 100 years of business.

A century of family business

In addition to the bar's ownership spanning three generations, bar owner Ryan Lehmann said the clientele has as well.

"I still have people that come in when my grandparents still owned it,” Lehmann told The Sheboygan Press last week. “And then you have my friends who came in when I was in my early 20s. And now some of those people's kids come in. It’s just a generational thing that keeps coming back, which is cool.”

Lehmann follows behind his grandfather Stanley Suscha, great uncle Joe Suscha Jr. and great grandfather Joe Suscha Sr., who purchased the bar from the Gutsch Brewery in 1922.

Joe Sr. initially moved from Yugoslavia to Sheboygan in 1902, first working at Suscha’s Meat Market.

The early days of Suscha’s brought challenges for Joe Sr. as he started operating the bar under Prohibition, leading him to serve food, soda and non-alcoholic beer until 1933. When World War II began a few years later, Joe Sr. had difficulty getting liquor and cigarettes to sell.

However, as the bar persevered, more family members began to support Joe Sr. in running the bar. Joe Jr. and brother-in-law Stanley Badtke joined the business in 1947, and when his son Stanley Suscha became old enough, he joined at the end of 1953, after being discharged from his service in the Korean War.

While working part time at UPS, Lehmann started helping his grandfather and great uncle at Suscha’s in 1996 when he was 20 years old. He stayed on with the new owners, Jim and Nadine Bukovic, after Joe Jr. and Stanley retired in 1999.

“They were great, so I just said, ‘OK, I'll stick around a couple more years,’ because nothing was happening for me at UPS at the time," Lehmann said. "I just kind of stuck around and then it just came to a point that they just offered me the job to run it.”

Lehmann started managing the bar in 2001, where he said he learned a lot from the Bukovics, in addition to his grandfather and great uncle.

“I mean, I was 24. I knew what I was doing, but I didn't know the background of everything,” Lehmann said. “I kind of did it on the fly. You know, I made a lot of mistakes and stuff like that, but they just stuck with me, and I got here today because of all of them.”

Although Lehmann eventually bought Suscha’s from the Bukovics in 2016, taking over the family bar was not initially part of his plan.

"I don't even know if I thought of it that way. It's my family, so of course I’m going to help,” Lehmann said.

Changes over time

Located in the center of the factory district, Suscha’s first served as a common gathering place for workers at Phonic Chair, R-Way Furniture, the Tannery and the railroad.

With success, Suscha’s reached “Super Bar” status close to this time in 1953, which helped the tavern offer cheaper prices than a typical bar as well as carry-out liquor, beer and wine.

“I think that kind of changed a little dynamic of the bar from that time to now because they were just selling beer cheaper," Lehmann said. "It was more of a thing back then that if something was a nickel difference, if a bar up the street was selling it for 25 cents and we sold it for 20 cents, that was a big thing.”

He said nowadays, being a Super Bar is more about being able to offer carry-out liquor.

As Suscha’s moved into the early 1960s, business grew as charter fishing became popular along Lake Michigan. The bar provided fishing equipment for customers, and even docked charter boats behind the bar on the Sheboygan River, with the Suscha boys keeping their own fishing boat, the “Coho Seeker,” in the boat house.

The bar adapted again in the 1980s, as fishing interest decreased and interest with the Wisconsin Lottery and gaming increased. When Lehmann took over in the early 2000s, he implemented more bar games like Golden Tee Golf and Silver Strike Bowling, which Suscha’s became the No. 1 destination for in the country for a period between 2009 and 2010.

Another notable moment for Suscha’s during this time was being the main sponsor and headquarters for the Pink in the Drink women’s fishing tournament until 2019.

“It’s changed, it has grown , but it’s still ‘Suscha’s,’ as long as I’ve been coming here,” Suscha’s bartender, Parmalee Orvis, said.

Orvis has worked at Suscha’s for nearly 21 years. She thinks Suscha’s means a lot to the community.

“If it ever got torn down or something happened, I think it would just be a big loss,” Orvis said.

Persevering through COVID-19, looking toward the future

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, nearly all businesses shut down, including Suscha’s.

“Being in the bar industry that long, you would never think that we'd ever get the bars to shut down in Wisconsin,” Lehmann said. "We knew something was probably going to happen. And then it was St. Patrick's Day 2020. And I shut us down and thought, 'OK, we have a couple of weeks.'”

Two weeks turned into two months.

“I checked with my employees if everyone was comfortable to open back up, and everyone's like, 'Yeah, let's do it. Let's go.’ So, we went,” Lehmann said.

He said business started off slow, with older people coming during the day and younger people coming at night.

“That younger clientele almost came around back pretty immediately after but still to this day, I still don't see a lot of my older clientele as much. They do come in, but maybe one day a week now instead of three or four,” Lehmann said.

He said they may have stopped coming for several reasons: health, safety and even just finding other things to do.

“It’s just it's one of those things that you just kind of keep going as best you can,” Lehmann said.

Today, business has returned mostly back to normal. And family continues to be central to Suscha’s.

“It’s family-oriented. Customers are family, and (there’s) fun, lots of fun,” Orvis said, adding that some of her fondest memories over her 20-year career at Suscha’s were spent with Stanley, Lehmann’s grandfather.

Since Lehmann first started at Suscha’s, he’s kept some pieces of advice from his grandfather and great uncle.

“If you make a mistake, you just learn from it, and don't get down on yourself about everything,” Lehmann said. “And customers will come and go, so just kind of go with it. Stuff happens. You just kind of move on. You just don't dwell on things.”

Looking toward Suscha’s future, Lehmann said he wants to focus on maintaining what they’re doing.

"We're going to try to kind of keep things going," Lehmann said. "We'll just kind of see what the future brings.”

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Celebrating 100 years

To celebrate 100 years, Suscha’s is hosting a golf and mini golf outing at Sunset Hills Golf Course in Sheboygan Falls Saturday, June 25. Attendees have the option to play either a nine-hole two-person round of golf and/or an 18-hole two-person round of mini golf. Both events will have prizes, and tickets cost $50 per person. Drinks and pizza will also be offered at the bar.

The next event will be a celebration party at the bar July 30, which will feature food and drinks, a bags tournament and the band Liquid Crush in the evening.

For Lehmann, it means a lot that people choose Suscha’s.

“I have so many great friends, great customers that come here and they just religiously come here," Lehmann said. "If they go out on a Friday night, they'll come here. That just means a lot to me.”

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Contact Alex Garner at 224-374-2332 or agarner@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter at @alexx_garner. 

This article originally appeared on Sheboygan Press: Suscha's Bar in Sheboygan celebrates 100 years of family business