currents

Open Bar

The Newsroom Pub
March 1, 2013

The Newsroom Pub
Milwaukee Press Club
Milwaukee, WI

Year opened 1885; in current location since 2000

Who drinks here Journalists, tourists, music and arts lovers

Distinguished guests The walls are lined with signed plaques, dating back more than 100 years, from luminaries in journalism, politics, sports, arts, and culture–Babe Ruth, William Jennings Bryan, fdr, Cecil B. DeMille, Henry Cabot Lodge, Lillian Russell, Jessica Tandy, etc.

Signature drink Wisconsin microbrews–and Pabst Blue Ribbon–on tap

Cat tale Anubis, the mummified cat pictured above, is the press club’s mascot. In 1897, it was “borrowed” from the State Historical Society in Madison by two journalists, ostensibly for a cat show in Milwaukee. Anubis has watched over the pub ever since.

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Jacob L. Nelson is an assistant professor at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. He is also the author of Imagined Audiences: How Journalists Perceive and Pursue the Public (Oxford University Press, 2021).