As first reported by OnMilwaukee.com last night, Nick’s House is closing.
Back in September 2014, we broke news that popular SPIKE TV “reality” series and thinly veiled Smirnoff commercial Bar Rescue was coming to Milwaukee to revive Y-Not III. That October, we were among the first patrons to see the final product of Jon Taffer’s apparently flawless method—of pretty much screaming at people, threatening to quit the project, ultimately staying, implementing overly elaborate shaker cocktails, screaming more, and making money somehow—when the classic Milwaukee dive bar transformed into a half-assed ’70s-themed bar called Nick’s House. That December, the episode in all its staged “stress test” and Taffer-screaming glory aired, which was sure to usher in a new epoch of prosperity. Except it didn’t.
We can’t say whether owner Nick DePalma fell into old habits or if customers simply weren’t into paying $6.25 for a glorified citrus vodka cranberry called The Mystery Machine at a bar whose theme came from an early 2000s sitcom based in a fictional Wisconsin town. We never returned after our first visit and we suspect we weren’t alone in this.
According to BarRescueUpdates.com, Nick’s House is the 32nd bar of Bar Rescue‘s 104 projects to close. Though the site actually announced the bar had closed in a May 3 post, Nick’s House will actually remain open until May 7 (exactly 18 months after the episode first aired). Goodbye, Nick’s. At least we’ll have the memories, which SPIKE TV will undoubtedly air until the end of time.
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• Bar Rescue turned Y-Not III into a ’70s-themed bar called Nick’s House