Shawn Harper
Craig Spaulding, right, behind the bar at the Esquire Club.
Few may have noticed the transition, but Kavanaugh’s Esquire Club, 1025 N. Sherman Ave., has a new owner. In business and owned by the Kavanaugh family since 1947, the modest bar/supper club is now owned by Craig Spaulding, long known in the Madison hospitality industry and most notably a co-owner of the old Cafe Montmartre, a forward-looking gathering spot with good drinks, live music and poetry slams (Heritage Tavern now occupies the site at 127 E. Mifflin). Most recently Spaulding has been tending bar at the AC Lounge in the AC Hotel downtown.
“I loved that job [at AC],” says Spaulding in an interview with Isthmus, “but after COVID, I got antsy. I wanted to explore different possibilities.” In best word-of-mouth fashion, an AC regular came in one day and mentioned that John Kavanaugh was looking to retire. Spaulding was interested.
The Esquire Club has a lot of regulars; its Wednesday and Friday fish fries pack the house, but the restaurant’s parking lot is often packed regardless of the day of the week. The somewhat rambling layout centers around a familiar Wisconsin bar room with a large, square bar. There are two dining rooms, one of which has atrium-like windows facing Sherman Avenue, as well as an overflow dining room in the basement. While some updating was in order — the carpeting has already been replaced — Spaulding doesn’t want to fix what isn’t broken. “I do not want to alienate any regulars,” he says.
He is also mindful of “what happened to the Avenue Bar.” That longtime East Washington Avenue bar/supper club — perhaps the area restaurant closest to the Esquire Club in menu and feel — was sold by its longtime family owners, the Zachs, to the Food Fight Restaurant Group in 2011. It was remodeled to become the chicer Avenue Club and Bubble Up Bar in 2015, and did not make it out of the COVID-19 restaurant crisis.
The Esquire Club “is already hip,” he says.
The Esquire Club is the kind of hometown, neighborhood restaurant that hosts events like Breakfast With Santa, and Spaulding intends to keep it that way. “Some customers have been coming here for 60-70 years,” says Spaulding. Families have relied on the restaurant for everything from wedding receptions to memorial lunches. It hosts a congregate senior meal as part of the NewBridge nutrition program on Wednesdays from 11 a.m.-1:30 p.m., and that will continue.
The north side along Sherman Avenue is undergoing major change. Several new restaurants, including Bear & Bottle, Patricia's Market taqueria and It’s Good For You Pizza, have opened, and Ancora took over the former Manna Cafe. Restaurateur Ben Altschul bought the historic Busse’s Markway Tavern and opened the fried chicken and doughnut shop Zippy Lube in a former oil change shop next door. Notably, hip vinyl bar/restaurant Lola’s Hi/Lo Lounge has transformed an old Jacobson’s Meat Market in the Lakeview Shopping Center, and the new Northside Lounge at 1022 N. Sherman Ave. is projected to open later this month.
A large number of new apartments are being built behind the Esquire Club between North Sherman and the former Oscar Mayer plant and between Roth Street and Commercial Avenue as part of the Oscar Mayer Special Area Plan, and Spaulding says that he wants his restaurant to be a welcoming place to the revitalized neighborhood.
There will be some changes, some tweaking of the menu. Spaulding wants to open for brunch Saturday and Sunday and also establish late night hours. He’s also looking to host live jazz Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. And he will start a cocktail program, with “fresh juices and syrups,” and focus on classic manhattans, whisky sours and Rob Roys. But the lake perch and broiled cod, bacon-wrapped filet, cheeseburgers made with Jenifer Street Market hamburger, housemade cheese dip, and even the liver and onions are not changing.
“I think every supper club has its uniqueness,” says Spaulding, mentioning hallmarks of the supper club restaurant style as a relaxed atmosphere, reasonable prices, “and reasonably strong drinks.”
While Spaulding has been working at the restaurant since January to ensure a smooth transition, the grand opening under his ownership is Wednesday, May 8, with a fundraiser from 5-7 p.m. with all sales of old fashioneds, made with new Berens brandy, going to The River Food Pantry.
