Key Takeaways:
- There are a number of ways to enjoy The Argo without buying a ticket. The restaurant and bar are always open and available to the public. Trivia, free jazz Wednesdays, and more.
- Village leadership is pleased with minimal disruptions to the neighbors since opening — and neighboring businesses can tell when a show is sold out.
- A ghost (!?) and other Easter eggs to look for next time you stop by.
A year and a half ago, plans to revitalize the old Fox Bay Theater were announced to the pleasure of many Whitefish Bay residents. Fast forward to the end of 2025 and The Argo opened its doors to much fanfare, giving residents another third place to gather — one of those spots that isn’t home and isn’t work, where neighbors can bump into each other on purpose or by accident and strike up a conversation.
Now, a full eight months in, The WFB Buzz sat down with Adam Powers, one of three co-founders and its CEO running the place day to day, to ask a few simple questions: how’s it going and what cool things do they have in store?
The short answer is that it’s going well and there is likely more going on at The Argo than most locals realize.
Three businesses, one building
The first thing Powers wants people to understand is that The Argo isn’t just a music venue. It’s three closely aligned verticals all under one roof: a restaurant, an events space and yes, a music venue. Which means there’s a long list of ways to walk through those doors without ever buying a ticket to a show. You can come for dinner and a drink any night they’re open, no ticket, no cover. Free live jazz on Wednesdays, with donation-based dance lessons. Free movie nights. Trivia. Happy hours. A Friday fish fry. And a second-floor ballroom you can rent for a graduation party or a wedding reception. Powers has a slogan for it — never a dark day — and he means it fairly literally.
“It’s challenging to run three businesses at once,” he said. “You have the concerts. You have the restaurant. Then you have private events.” Coordinating with employees to do all three, and do all three well, has been the central puzzle of year one. Getting the word out to the broader community about all three has been equally important.
The restaurant
Ask Powers what’s surprised him most since opening and the answer won’t be about the music side of the business.
“The restaurant is slower than we’d like,” he said. “We thought that would be kind of the staple neighborhood hangout type thing.”
Every time the discussion comes up in Whitefish Bay, there is a common theme from residents: they all want more places to eat, especially along the Silver Spring Drive stretch. The Argo has a full kitchen with a menu built by five-time James Beard Best Chef: Midwest semi-finalist Dan Jacobs.
Powers has a theory about the disconnect. “I think we got a little cute with the naming of that space. We call it the lounge,” he said. “Now, we just call it a restaurant. That’s what we are. So that’s kind of my new campaign: we are a restaurant.”
In the kitchen, the fish fry is back by popular demand, they’ve added drink and food specials, happy hour is running, and a menu refresh lands in the coming months. Chefs Isaac Bahn and Bailey Troyer are bringing their own personal flairs to the menu. For example, you may notice an Asian influence on a handful of existing dishes in the future.
The events space
The private events side is still finding its stride, and mostly for reasons of timing. Opening in early December dropped them into the holiday party season with no lead time. Then the 2026 wedding booking window passed before they had a chance to get the word out.
Inquiries are starting to pour in, and The Argo is actively courting categories that haven’t found them yet: local business holiday parties, graduation celebrations, weddings and baby showers. Given the flexibility of the multiple spaces within the venue, patrons can host a more intimate 30 person event in the balcony space, a 150 person wedding in the ballroom or (as a few corporate clients have done) rent out the whole space for a few hundred guests.
The numbers
Powers was proud to share a few figures:
- 72 shows performed as of late July and on pace for roughly 150 in the first year. Comfortably past their initial 100-show target.
- Add a few dozen more to the list once you count things like trivia, jazz nights, happy hours (join for the Dad’s Happy Hour on August 12th!) and private bookings.
- Well over 20,000 people through the door to date, by his estimate.
- They’ve successfully brought in patrons from across the region, not just Whitefish Bay Villagers. Over 1,000 tickets have been sold to residents of the Chicagoland area, as an example.
Summer and around the holidays are the quiet seasons by nature for music venues; tours thin out and pick back up in the spring and fall.
The Easter eggs
There are a few meaningful things hiding in plain sight at The Argo, some of which you may have walked right past. Others you may have noticed, but may not know the ‘why’. Be on the lookout the next time you walk through the space.
There’s a ghost, and his name is Al. Fortunately, he’s friendly, just like Casper. The legend, as relayed by Powers: Al was a ticket taker at the Fox Bay Theater who has never really left the place. Powers says Al has tapped him on the shoulder more than once, always upstairs, always when he was alone. “I was standing [on the balcony] just watching the band, and all of a sudden I was like, oh, Josh [Powers’ business partner]. I thought it was Josh because I saw him walk this way. I was like, oh my god.” It wasn’t Josh. He’s convinced it was Al.
So there’s a shot waiting at the back bar now. Powers pours one whenever Al makes himself known, an idea borrowed from another local bar, which keeps “angel shots” for staff who have passed away. His bar manager has learned to read the sign if he sees a shot left on the shelf: dude, Al was here again last night? There’s also a cocktail on the menu called the Ghost of Al. Now you know why.
The Wally Waffle Sundae on the menu is named for Chef Bailey’s dog, who passed away a couple of months after opening. Powers pushed to rename the dessert in the dog’s honor.
Original equipment salvaged is on display in the restaurant to pay homage to the Fox Bay’s history. Most of what’s on display survived because Powers walked the building before demolition and slapped stickers on everything he wanted preserved from the basement.
Behind one wall, signatures from the 1990s renovation. Prior employees had left their signatures across one wall while the Fox Bay underwent renovations in the 1990s. When The Argo team finished their own build-out, they signed it too.
A hallway where every band signs the wall. It’s filling quickly already after only eight months. “We’ve run out of space!”
The marquee is changed by hand every week, usually by Powers himself, climbing up a ladder.
The lights under the marquee are LEDs and controlled from his phone. He changes them for holidays. Red, white and blue for the Fourth; green and red during the Christmas season.
Argo the dog. Argo is also the name of Powers’ dog (named before the venue). If you look closely, Argo the dog’s paw prints are pressed into the floor near the back door in the main concert space. I had the pleasure of meeting him in the building the day I visited and he’s featured in the main photo at the top of this post! The venue (and dog) are actually named after a boat Powers’ family spent many happy days on over the years.
What it’s done for the block
For anyone who watched the Village Board meetings leading up to The Argo’s approval, neighbors voiced potential concerns about a few things, namely noise and parking. Fair concerns for anyone living near a 700-capacity music venue.
The WFB Buzz asked the Village how it’s actually played out. Village Manager Kelsey McElroy-Anderson shared that the Village received three noise complaints early after opening. The Argo team looked into it, added vibration isolators to solve a specific issue causing the complaints, tightened up door procedures, and there hasn’t been much concern since then.
On parking, her answer was one sentence. The only parking complaint they’ve received in eight months involved a band’s RV parked overnight as it had unfortunately broken down.
“The Argo team has been excellent to work with.” McElroy-Anderson wrote. “They are responsive when issues arise and willing to collaborate with the Village to identify solutions.”
The other question Village leadership had going in, especially given taxpayer money involved to bring the business to Whitefish Bay: would a venue like this lift the businesses around it?
Powers says yes, and his neighbors can measure it. He’s talked with Moxie’s and The Bay’s owners and they can tell when The Argo has a sellout. He now gives them a heads-up when a big show is coming so they can prepare for it. “They’ve definitely felt the impact,” he said. “Because we can only seat so many [in The Argo restaurant].”
Two additional examples that Powers shared: Recently, a touring band spent their off-hours riding bikes around the neighborhood, grabbing coffee and lunch along Silver Spring, and told him how nice it was to play somewhere they could do that; similarly, on a recent Tuesday, a younger crowd turned up hours early for a meet-and-greet, sat out front, and patronized nearby businesses while they waited.
“That’s really my goal,” Powers said. “Everyone keeps saying, hey, we need more restaurants and stuff like that. We need to support [the businesses] here right now. Let’s support what’s happening and then grow.”
What’s coming
Powers shared that they are always working on future musical bookings, but they’ve also spent significant efforts lately on smaller additions that may be of interest to nearby residents. He shared a few ideas in the works:
- Bingo Sundays, launching in the restaurant.
- A few more TV screens will be going in in the restaurant space.
- A bags/cornhole league.
- They’ve kicked around the idea of hosting a dodgeball tournament in the main event space — different local bars can have staff face off vs. another bar’s staff for bragging rights. The Buzz floated the idea of local dandelion lovers vs. non-dandelion lovers. I’d buy a ticket for that!
- More comedy. They have hosted one so far, a sold-out Charlie Berens fundraiser, and Powers would like to do more of those.
“Every music venue can’t just be a music venue,” he said. “It needs to be like a chameleon. It could be anything.”
What he’d like you to know
I closed by asking what he wishes locals understood.
“We’d love people to saddle up to the bar. Make this your watering hole.” The Argo is the latest-serving spot on the street, open until 11pm.
And if you’ve walked past and wondered whether you can just poke your head in: “Yes. We’re open. And also, come see the other spaces. We’re happy to walk you around.”
Consider that an open invitation and help make The Argo an irreplaceable community asset.
Leave a Reply