🌮 New owners, same tacos at Ohio Tavern

🚣 Starkweather Creek Allies Want Action on PFAS

• The Friends of Starkweather Creek are pushing the city, county, and Wisconsin Air National Guard to do more to combat PFAS, also known as “forever chemicals,” in the creek.
• A recent water analysis by the group found elevated levels of PFAS in the creek, which flows through Madison and empties into Lake Monona. In one spot, the PFAS registered at 245 times the state standard. PFAS are a family of chemicals linked to some cancers, low birth weight, and a host of environmental concerns. [WKOW, Madison Minutes]

🌮 Ohio Tavern Will Change Owners, Not Tacos

• The Ohio Tavern, the Ohio Avenue restaurant/bar known for its tacos and karaoke nights, will be purchased by two new owners. Ross Hubbard, part-owner of Aftershock Classic Arcade, and Ryan Schultz, who owns Baldwin Street Grille, will take over the business from current owner Josh Swentzel.
• Court records show Swetzel and the Ohio Tavern have been the subject of numerous tax and workforce complaints in recent years, including a state investigation that the bar was running bingo games without a license. Hubbard and Schultz say they don’t have any plans to make major changes at the Ohio, one of the oldest bars in Madison. [ 🔒 WSJ, WKOW]

📰 Wisconsin State Journal Recovering From Cyberattack

• Lee Enterprises said a “cybersecurity event” last week disrupted dozens of its newspapers and news outlets, including the Wisconsin State Journal.
• The outage prevented the State Journal from publishing a newspaper or e-edition on Feb. 4. That paper was included with the Feb. 5 edition, and since then the newspaper has been publishing smaller editions until ongoing problems are resolved.
• Lee Enterprises CEO Kevin Mowbray said law enforcement has been notified, and the company is focused on what information was affected. [🔒 WSJ, TechCrunch]

If you go out for a nice dinner or fancy cocktails on Valentine’s Day, you might think that downtown Madison has always been a wholesome, PG-rated place to be.

But did you know the city, especially the area known as First Settlement District, has a kinky past? Learn about the places and people that gave Madison its sexy reputation in the Midwest, and how that ethos is continuing today.

Madison’s Red Light District

These days, the 100 block of East Main Street is full of nice restaurants like the Tipsy Cow and Argus BarGrille. But in the 1970s it attracted entertainment of a different kind. The Dangle Club and the Mustang Inn were considered to be Ground Zero for Madison’s Red Light District, with strippers at the Dangle and topless bartenders at the Mustang. Down the street, This Is Heaven offered sauna massages for both “male and female clients.”

King Street had its own porn shop, and residents remember that the streets were full of prostitutes and their customers, “a freewheeling open-air market of streetwalkers and pimps.” In the ‘80s, neighborhood residents got sick of all the crime and worked with police to drive out the prostitutes and unsavory establishments, paving the way for the First Settlement District we know today.

Hotel Washington

The story of Madison’s LGBTQ+ history can’t be told without the Hotel Washington. The development was not only a 22-room residential hotel, but considered the epicenter of Madison’s LGBTQ+ community at the time. It included the Club de Wash music club, the Barber’s Closet speakeasy (accessible only through a secret door), and a masculine gay bar in the basement known as Rod’s.

Rod’s was named after Rodney Scheel, a prominent gay rights activist in Madison who opened Madison’s first out gay bar, The Back Door in 1972, and bought Hotel Washington in 1975. Scheel died in 1990, and the hotel burned down in 1996.

⬆️ Last Week’s Photo

This cat is found at Mickey’s Tavern!

🎉Congratulations to Julie R., Olivia J., and Ann N. for being the first to guess right! Based on the responses, it was a toughie!

⬇️ This Week’s Photo

Do you know where these decorations are? A few clues:

• They are located in a restaurant on Madison’s east side that opened in 2023.
• The cities depicted on the maps are a big clue as to the kind of cuisine served there.
• Our Executive Producer Hayley Sperling highly recommends the Monday night “Lab Night” at the restaurant!