Greetings and Salutations my Thursday Night Friends,
As the great Samuel L. Jackson once said, “hold on to your butts”: it’s that time of year again folks, and I am excited. Who are we kidding, being excited is putting it lightly. It is the Welcome to Thursdays Anniversary week and that only means one thing – Old Mil and celebrations are in our future! Grab a hold of something and brace yourselves because Milwaukee isn’t ready for what we are about to get into. Yep, that’s right folks, we’ve made it 2 years and we won’t be slowing down anytime soon! We are starting our celebrations this Thursday night at the spot where it all started: Fat Daddy’s. Good drinks, great people, and one hell of a time await you, as always, this Thursday night.
(Photo Credit: Imageflip.com)
I look back at 2017 and simply can’t help but smile. It has been a year full of growth and memories. Our membership has doubled in size, and Welcome to Thursdays has gained some pretty amazing people. We continue to find new and interesting spots in Milwaukee and our list of bars grows with every new member! As per tradition, I will tell the tale of how all of this started…
One cold February night in the basement of Fat Daddy’s, Kyle Stangel was on the final table of a high stakes Pai Gow Poker match. His final opponents included a very well dressed Hungarian man and an elderly women in a red velvet dress. The stakes had just been risen and the tension in the room was so thick, you could cut it with a knife. I of course, standing in the back, attended Kyle’s matches for support (and back up in case it was ever needed). I was going shot for shot with a group of businessmen from Japan, the drink was warm sake. The prize for tonight’s poker match was a newborn panda named Jacoby.
I slammed another shot down, laughing and cheering with my new found Japanese friends; suddenly the room went silent – you could hear a pin drop. The table decided that the next hand would determine the winner of the entire match. Now I don’t know much about Pai Gow Poker, but what I do know is the well dressed Hungarian man clearly did not have a good hand. He stood up, shook his head in defeat, and left. Kyle and the woman in red showed their hands and then just looked at each other. It appeared they had drawn a tie! She leaned in and whispered something in his ear, he looked up at her, smiled and shook her hand. Kyle then said “Wǒ qì pái”. Kyle folded and the woman had won. She handed him a fortune cookie, smiled, and walked out of the basement with her newly won panda, Jacoby.
Kyle and I proceeded back upstairs to enjoy a pitcher of Old Milwaukee. When we got there he opened the fortune cookie, which simply said: “Those seeking enlightenment need only look onto the next bar with an infinite gaze and prodigious people.” Soon after, we bought the domain www.jeremyandkyle.com and began our magical journey of Welcome to Thursdays – and there is no end in sight.
(Photo Credit: ImageFlip.com)
Cheers to two years, my Friends!
Your co-founder and friend,
Jeremy Blandin
*Keeping your glass filled and spirits high one Thursday at a time, this is Welcome to Thursdays: a local social group determined to make your Thursdays more fun. Each Wednesday, The Squeaky Curd features a (generally) fictitious story of a Milwaukee County bar that we gather at on Thursday evening. Join us this Thursday, February 22, 2018 at Fat Daddy’s, 120 W National Ave, (Walker’s Point), at 7:30pm.*