Jentri Colello
Chad Vogel of the Robin Room branches out.
One of the big names in Madison mixology is planning a new venture and it’s not quite what you might imagine. Chad Vogel (The Robin Room, Mint Mark) is partnering again with Sean Pharr (Mint Mark) to open a new bar on Monona Drive in the Lake Edge Shopping Center. It will be called The Muskie, or more formally The Muskellounge and Sporting Club. “The fish is called a muskellunge, but when you catch one you don’t say that, you say ‘I caught a muskie!’” says Vogel.
The location would seem to be far from the center of any hipster heatmap in town, but it reflects the, well, aging of the millennials. Lake Edge is one of the more affordable neighborhoods for buying a home and the shopping center, built in 1959, is undergoing a renaissance with the addition of Slow Roll Cycles, Lake Edge Seafood Co., Burn Boot Camp and Tabby & Jack’s pet store.
“The owner [of the shopping center] approached me,” says Vogel in a telephone interview. “He wanted a bar concept in that building, he thought it would be a good mix. And I personally have always wanted to have shuffleboard in a bar. I love that game. If you’ve been to the Robin Room, you know it’s a little small for shuffleboard.”
The storefront, next to Lake Edge Seafood Co. and formerly home to Elie’s Family Restaurant, is “really big,” says Vogel. “That was kind of concerning to me and Sean. We’ve not done anything that large before. That was why the idea for the large-format games.”
Vogel wants to keep the capacity more intimate at about 80.
Vogel and Pharr met while attending college in Stevens Point. “There’s a bar there called the Elbow Room. They don’t have their shuffleboard anymore, but back in the day, we played a lot of shuffleboard there — that was another impetus.”
Vogel notes that Madison is short on bars that have larger games. “There aren’t a ton of ping-pong tables around. We would love to get a bubble hockey table, there’s only one in the city we know of. People have mentioned bumper pool to us.” The Muskie will be geared toward groups of 6-8 people who want to get together, chat and play some games. There will be a longer beer list than The Robin Room, some wines by the glass, and some cocktails but “we’ll keep it to the classics,” says Vogel. “The Robin Room has 65 cocktails on the menu, this will be in the 20s.” That said, spirits will be on hand and “anything we make [elsewhere], usually we will be able to make at this place too.”
To keep the focus on conversation, there will be only a few televisions and they might even be hidden when not in use, says Vogel. “It’s a sporting bar, not a sports bar. We’ll keep viewing to major Wisconsin sporting events or the World Cup or an election, unless someone specifically wants to watch something. Every time I’m in a bar that has a television in it, I stare at it, and it’s not good for conversation.”
Vogel and Pharr are shooting for an October opening. In the meantime he’s scouting lightly used shuffleboard and vintage bubble hockey equipment. The look will be sporting. “At each place, we try to incorporate modern elements but we don’t want it unapproachable. There will probably be some taxidermy, I would imagine. There’s that, too.”
