Last weekend, a near-sellout crowd packed The Metal Grill to see the likes of Off With Their Heads, Negative Approach, PEARS, Toys That Kill, The Copyrights, Direct Hit!, and more during Dummerfest. Less than a week later, the Cudahy bar, grill, and concert venue has closed its doors for good.
Neil Borkowski, who has owned the property at 5036 S. Packard Ave.—which formerly housed The Blue Pig and Vnuk’s Lounge—with his wife Theresa since 2013, announced The Metal Grill was closing “effective immediately” in a Facebook post on Friday. Here’s a portion of Borkowski’s statement:
“The Metal Grill management consists of Theresa and myself, we handle everything behind the scenes to make sure this establishment runs effectively and efficiently. Unfortunately, when you look at the time and energy spent in running the venue along with the both of us working full-time jobs it became a matter of time where we couldn’t closely monitor day to day operations and our staff. As an end result, our business model hasn’t met performance goals and financial obligations to our lenders.”
In addition to the bands mentioned above, The Metal Grill has hosted punk, metal, and hardcore notables like Voivod, Trapt, The Suicide Machines, 88 Fingers Louie, Kip Winger, The Flatliners, Norma Jean, Expire, and many more in its relatively brief existence.
The roughly 300-capacity room was a bastion of local and regional metal, and one of a select few Milwaukee-area venues that hosted all-ages and/or 18+ shows. For those reasons and more, the loss of The Metal Grill is a significant blow. Farewell, The Metal Grill. Thanks for all the good times.