The Library Club

Bring back the Decibel Deep Bar! I move away to Denver for a year and hear rumors of this new club opening up in Milwaukee, The Library Club. Strictly based on what I saw through Facebook posts I knew I was going to like this club. Unfortunately, what you see online isn’t always what you get in person. I will say that I really love the concept and I enjoyed the atmosphere that they were going for. But this was a Saturday night and the place was mostly empty close to bar close. Wait, what? This is supposed to be this hip (relatively) new place. Where are the droves of club goers? Why is it mostly Hip Hop music? Where did Decibel go?
I left with more questions than I had answers. I was disappointed. I will say I liked seeing the portrait of George Costanza in underwear on the wall. Plus the portraits of Will Ferrell, Burt Reynolds and Tom Selleck were more than amusing. The bartender’s uniforms were spot on too. The DJ they had in for that night was great too — really played to what was working with the (lacking) crowd.
I was most disappointed that I had to pay a cover for nothing. I really really wanted to enjoy my first visit, but it just left a bad taste in my mouth and I don’t see myself returning anytime soon.

Too many underage kids /​riff raff in here. There free drinks for the ladies on Thursday night tends to bring them out.
For the price paid, quality of drinks are absolute garbage. House liqour is probably the most nasty stuff I have ever drinking at a «club».
The décor here is nice… a bartender who works at the main bar is real friendly. Other than that, nothing good about this place, except one of the few places with a big crowd on Thursday nights. On any other night, one star.
Edit: Tuesday night is promoted as «S.I.N» nights (service industry night). Probably the only place in all of Milwaukee that has a small number of people. Surprisingly, the crowd wasn’t that bad this time around. Half off drinks made the place more bearable. May come here more often.

A friend from out of town was visiting so we decided to celebrate by going to the Library Club. I haven’t lived in Milwaukee long (I moved here from Chicago a year ago) and didn’t know too much other than that the Library Club use to be called something else. When we entered we noticed there were only two other people on the dance floor, which seemed odd for around 12:00 on a Friday. Since our friend was visiting we tried to make the most of her visit and the two of us requested a song to dance too while our other friends ordered drinks at the bar.
As a general assessment of the place: the bartender was texting the entire time and acted as though we had interrupted her when we asked for drinks. There was also an unusual poor selection of liquor to choose from and the place felt… too dark? It’s hard to describe. Maybe I’m use to dance clubs having more lights… more excitement?
When our song played that was when the situation got… well weird. At this point in the night there were only four people on the dance floor (and the four included me and my friend in the center of the floor and two others in the far corner), and the DJ took out his cell phone and began recording us two dancing. Our first question was, where is this recording going? At a club, I understand a DJ may record the setting/​environment as a way to promote his/​her business. Two girls dancing on a lonely dance floor isn’t exactly the best material to promote a club or a DJ’s skills. This question about where the recorded material was going made the experience feel particularly unethical. I wondered how often this happened and why.
We later talked to the manager and asked him to request that the DJ delete the video. The manager treated our request and disgust about the incident with apathy, although to his credit he said he would ask the DJ to delete it. We tried to explain why we had a hard time believing it would be a good idea to promote a business by filming a nearly empty dance floor. We felt a bit violated by being singled out in the recording. Again, it was just weird. I’m not sure how else to explain it.
It’s a shame because the place looked like it had potential, but there are just too many checks against it for me, or my friends, to want to go back.