I'm just puting up a temporary blog because people might miss the bulletins and the notice for new blogs stays up much longer...

As I stated earlier, my girlfriend Lauren has been working for the last two months on this mini documentary about the history and closing of The Mosaic. It's finally finished and ready to be seen by you all.


I'm extremely happy with how it turned out, and couldn't be prouder of Lauren for doing such a magnificent job not only with the piece itself, but also in capturing the sentiments of, how I imagine that many of you felt or feel about my humble establishment.


I've chosen not to embed it on The Mosaic's myspace page... (yet) because I want you all to watch it from the youtube site and rate and comment on it there, (if you so wish.)

click here to watch it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7eVY1vQjCc

Leave her a comment either on the youtube page or on her myspace page (Luni), and let her know what you think.

Feb 1, 2008.

Friends of The Mosaic:

As most of you know, The time for the Mosaic on Downer Ave. grows short.
Our three-year lease is only half through, but developments in recent months have changed the circumstances of our existence.

About 5 months ago, The landlord approached me and told me of his plans to develop the second floor from a parking garage (Yes, there is currently a parking garage above the Mosaic) into medical offices. In order to power those offices, approximately 300 square feet of space was needed. As it turns out, the most convenient 300 square feet of space went directly through the bar area of The Mosaic.

As such, the following offers were presented:

First, A bar could be built in the front, piano room. I rejected this offer because taking away roughly a third of the space would severely hinder the ability to have large crowds for certain events and entertainers. Plus, I, like many of you, enjoyed the fact that the bar was somewhat secluded and off the beaten path..

Next, The offer was made to relocate The Mosaic or, failing that, to buy out the remainder of the lease. Or, I could chose to do nothing, and fulfill the remainder of the three years. However, it was then told to me that due to development on Downer ave, and the aforementioned need for my space, that at the end of the original contract, the lease would not be renewed. This effectively meant that the maximum life span of The Mosaic on Downer was *at best*, through Sept 2009.

Therefore, relocation was the option that I decided to pursue.

Over the last month, I have met with architects and the landlord multiple times to plan and design out the new space. What we came up with was an elegant yet casual space, much like the atmosphere of the current incarnation. Warm, Inviting, Fun a great place to come drink, relax and socialize without the hassles of so many other bars that you tend to find on the east side.

Alas, there was but one problem...  The Cost.

I was alloted a budget of approximately 70K to design and build out the new space. After designing the space, the estimated cost to construct the new establishment came in at somewhere between 150-160K.

More than twice the alloted budget.

Mind you, this build out was to be completely from scratch. The new space was completely naked, nothing but cinder-block walls and concrete floors. Ventilation, plumbing, electrical, flooring, drywall, plaster, security and sound systems. Not to mention the cost of the actual bar, new coolers, fixtures, new furniture and lighting, ad infinitum... It all adds up pretty quickly.

As they say, do it right or don't do it at all.

One final meeting was scheduled this past Tuesday to see what could be done to bring the cost down.

After much back and forth discussion, I ultimately decided that in the end, the results of a bar designed to fit within the budget would be both selling short the integrity of an atmosphere which I have worked hard to maintain and would be a disservice to all the patrons who have come to enjoy The Mosaic for it's unique and distinctive style.

To put it mildly, I wouldn't have been happy or satisfied with the end results and I guarantee that you would not have been either.

Therefore, It is with a sad reluctance, that I must announce that there will be no new establishment to take the place of The Mosaic.

As much I would have liked to continue to serve you at a bigger and better Mosaic, it was not to be. At least not right now. Perhaps someday in the near future, I will open a new establishment. This line of work is in my blood. It's what I do and it's what I'm good at. I can't imagine doing much else. I certainly can't see myself at some 9 to 5 behind a desk or in a cube



There is also another aspect of the situation that you all deserve to know:

Ever since I took over the bar in Feb '05, I have not paid myself a salary. I have existed exclusively off of the generosity of my customers in the form of tips. Additionally, For every year of my three year lease, the rent has and would have continued to increase substantially. To put it bluntly, rent was expensive enough to begin with, and it was only going to get worse.

While business has been steady over the last three years, it has not increased as I hoped it would. This, coupled with the successive annual rent increases have made it more and more difficult to make ends meet, and in all honesty, I didn't foresee things getting substantially better over the next year or so, especially with the way the economy seems headed.

Working literally every day as I have for the past three years, just to tread water rather than to move forward and get ahead is foolish at best and at worst, simply idiotic. To say the least, it's extraordinarily frustrating. And without improvement, or the potential of improvement on the horizon, then really what's the point of putting in all that effort just to barely keep ones head above water?

This was a major concern of mine when I signed the lease, so I made sure that written into it was an escape clause, that allowed me to exit the lease between April and September each year.

In all honesty, with things going the way they have been, which again, was not negatively, but no positive growth either, I likely would have exercised the escape clause option sometime this year and closed down at the end of June in order to more fully enjoy the few warm months we have in Milwaukee.

And had it not been for the landlord coming to me with these options, if these offers had never been presented to me, I would have, in all likelyhood, walked away from The Mosaic a short 4 or 5 months from now, broke and with nothing but the equipment and the memories.

As it stands, I am walking away with a bit of security, peace of mind, many wonderful friendships that have been formed over the last 4 1/2 years (not to mention a new relationship) and a whole hell of a lot of good memories.

Lastly, I want to state that I do not consider this as a failure. I'm not closing my doors because I was forced to or because I couldn't afford to keep this place open any longer. I want to reiterate that I'm closing my doors, because an opportunity arose and even though it didn't work out as I had hoped or planned,  It's still a much better set of circumstances for me than simply biding my time and running out the remainder of my lease. I hope you can all understand my descision to do what I did.

I'd also like to point out that in the first 15 months of The Mosaic's existance there were six, count them, SIX owners. In the past 36 months there has been one owner.

Me.

I figure that if I can do, for twice as long, by myself, what six others couldn't do before me, then I must have been doing something right.

I know many of you are sad to see The Mosaic go, as am I. But if there's one thing I've learned over the course of my years, is that change, while scary at first, almost always turns out to be a good thing.

I don't know yet what I'm going to do after the Mosaic, (Aside from a long overdue vacation) but I'm excited to look forward to whatever the next chapter may hold in store for me.

I'll see everyone down the road of this great adventure called life!

Cheers,
Chip

PS. I plan the last days of operation to be either Saturday, Feb 9 or Sun, Feb 10.
Saturday Feb 9th is the planned last hurrah celebration. I'll be drinking heavily, so I'm sure that the drinks will get cheaper as the night gets longer!
Come one, come all, (Over 21 of course) to help me drink my alcohol so I don't have to move it... Or worse yet, pour it down the drain! That'd be a sin against man and nature!

Here's a comment we received recently and our response to said comment:

"Yeah, so I looked at a credit card recipt that I found the day after I was WASTED, and apparently you guys changed me $5.00 for a farking GIN AND TONIC...a small one; I remember how small it was. I guess I'll be your "friend" anyway, because I had a great experience at your fine establishment. But next time I stop by, you'd better have some drink special like: "buy a Pabst and get 2 free shots of Jameson" or something to make up for that bullshait! "

Our Response:

"Normally, Gin and tonics are $4.50, but we have a $5 minimum charge for using a credit or debit card, which, to be honest is really pretty generous. Most other establishments have at LEAST a $10 minimum to run a tab. We've seen places as high as $20

Now, we can understand how you think that may be expensive, And we're not going to go into overhead costs such as the extremly high rent and utilities and entertainment. Sufficed to say, if you really take the time to compare prices at establishments of similar quality we think you'll find that drink prices at The Mosaic are actually in line or below that of similar places.
In fact, if you take advantage of our daily specials, conveniently listed on the myspace page, you'll realize that you can, in fact, get WASTED rather economically on certain days of the week.

If all you're looking for is to maximize your drinking dollar, (and honestly, what 22 year old wouldn't?) and if PBR is your idea of a good beer, feel free to patronize some hole in the wall establishment where drunken obnoxious college underage frat-boy antics are the norm.

But, if at some point in the future, should you feel like spending time in a more refined, yet relaxed environment, where you can enjoy a cocktail (from an award winning drink menu) AND a conversation instead of having to shout to be heard over the din of the mob, then we'd love to see you back at The Mosaic."

------------------

You see, folks, We here at The Mosaic strive to create an image, an atmosphere, if you will, that is unique to the east side of Milwaukee. The Mosaic is not a place to get "WASTED," as was so eloquently stated above,  and as such, the typical drunken behavior you find so prevalent on North Avenue and Water Street is almost non-existant at our fine establishment. This is not to say that you can't have fun at The Mosaic...

In fact, we strive to provide for you to have a great experience that will make you want to return. But when that rare individual crosses the line into stupid behavior that affects other peoples enjoyment, be assured that The Mosaic is no longer the place for them to be...  At least for that evening.

We value each and every customer that we have, and we think we've got something pretty special in our little corner of Downer Ave. Which is why you won't see sports on 20 TV screens... Which is why you won't see hordes of newly turned 21 year olds lining up for birthday shots... Which is why you won't see specials offering cans of beer for a buck....

We believe that there's a lot of you out there that want a nice establishment without all the typical hullbuloo, who want the bar without the 'bar scene,'  which is what we strive to provide.

To become like every other typical east side bar is something we're just not interested in. 

We hope you agree, and we hope to see you soon at The Mosaic.

So we're trying to get a new thing going on Tuesdays...

An OPEN JAZZ JAM!

Hosted by The Patric Nelson Trio, Every Tuesday beginning at 8pm, The Mosiac invites all musicians, jazz or otherwise, to come and participate in our weekly OPEN JAZZ JAM.

Play along, or just sit back and listen. Bring a friend, bring 20 friends. This is your chance to be a rockstar, (But please... don't smash your instruments or anything else!) and get all the love and admiration that you've been craving your whole life.

So cme one, come all, to The Mosaic, on Tuesday Nights for our, say it with me... OPEN JAZZ JAM

So you may have noticed that You've been requested to be re-added to The Mosaic.

Simply, I wanted to change the Mosaic's page from a personal one to a Music one, so as to better make use of the available bells and whistles.

I tried to post a bulletin about this, but as soon as I deleted the old page, the bulletin went with it.

Oh well... C'est la Vie.

I may have missed some people, and I really don't know how to get in touch with everyone who was on the list previously. I guess I'll just have to wait for everyone to wander back on in.

In the meantime, Be sure to check out the new and improved page, complete with upcoming shows and songs from recent and upcoming performers.

And why not stop in to The Mosaic and try out our award winning drink menu!

See you at The Mosaic!

-Chip