A Retro Cocktail Bar Is Opening Next To Another Cocktail Bar In Logan Square

By Stephen Gossett in Food on May 26, 2017 7:50PM

That's the Before photo / Courtesy of Now Open Project

The craft cocktail-ification of Logan Square is rolling on. A new cocktail-and-desserts spot, to be splashed with a retro, Wisconsin supper-club feel, will take up shop right next to Deadbolt—which took over the late, great Two Way Lounge space back in February.

Dubbed Pink Squirrel, the bar—which will have a walk-up window and a variety of ice-cream drinks and old-school booze concoctions—is helmed by the same guy behind Deadbolt, noted mixologist Dustin Drankiewicz. Taking root in the old Nail Style space (at 2414 N. Milwaukee Ave.), it'll take inspiration from Bryant’s Cocktail Lounge, Milwaukee's oldest cocktail lounge—literally bringing Milwaukee to Milwaukee.

Expect a very retro, Great Lakes flavor. “The Pink Squirrel was the first curated cocktail that I ever had. I grew up around 50 to 100-year-old bowling allies and taverns like Holler House, Bob-E-Lanes, and Koz’s Mini Bowling. My old man was even a professional bowler for living," Drankiewicz said in a release.

The menu will have six to ten boozy ice-cream drinks and Drankiewicz and some 40 old-school cocktails (think Brooklyn Egg Creams and Harvey Wallbangers). A patio will be be open in the summer months.

From Three Dots and a Dash to Punch House and so many in between, there's clearly no shortage of aggressively retro cocktail joints these days. But they're fun and tasty when done well. Lets hope this latest New Logan entry keeps truck.