Paddy’s Pub For Sale For Redevelopment

“Calling all investors” reads a new real estate listing for three East Side buildings.

Which means it could be last call at Paddy’s Pub, a 23-year-old Irish bar at 2239 N. Murray Ave.

“Prime East Side corner ready to develop,” says the listing from Shorewest Realtors agent Jim Schleif. “Buy the corner and develop your dream investment.”

Husband-and-wife owners Orlen “Woody” Wood and Patricia “Patty” Phillips are retiring according to the listing. Wood is 78 and Phillips is 63. It’ll be the second retirement for Wood, who retired from the Milwaukee Police Department in the 1990s.

They’ve listed a three-unit house, tear-down-ready duplex and two-story tavern building for sale for $639,900. That’s down $60,000 from when it first posted in August.

The tavern has been heavily remodeled inside and out to look like one found in the old country. The drink menu and entertainment has also been designed to match, with an array of Irish whiskey, Irish coffee and Guiness beer offered alongside live Irish music.

A large patio on the south end of the property features multiple fountains, stone tables and space for the musicians to set up. The interior of the bar is lined with decorations, some more than 200 years old. The upstairs features a small hall that can be rented for events and is popular with politicians for fundraisers.

The couple, in a 2013 profile by Urban Milwaukee, took pride in having built most of the tavern themselves, having remodeled the building in phases from its prior use as a home for Patty’s pet grooming business. The legal entity behind the bar was “Paddy’s Pet ‘N Pub, LLC,” reflecting a one-time vision to allow pets.

The two houses to the north were merged into the property in recent years, yielding one combined parcel, 2339-2345 N. Murray Ave., that the city values at $1.12 million. “Overly assessed by city,” says the listing.

But the duplex on the northwest corner of the property, which faces E. Thomas Ave., is described in the listing as a “tear down.” The couple has started that process. The structure has no tenants, nor running water.

The larger house, which faces N. Murray Ave., has three occupied units with seven combined bedrooms. It is currently generating $2,150 per month in rent.

Online city assessment records give a construction date of 1910, though it’s unclear what structure that is for. The listing says 1900. Wood told Urban Milwaukee in 2013 that he believed it was the late 1800s for the bar. The Wisconsin Historical Society doesn’t offer a date, though it does have an almost unrecognizable photo of the bar building before it was remodeled.

The neighborhood has seen plenty of change since the bar opened in 1998. To the west of the bar, The Standard at East Library apartment building opened in 2014 with a new library branch on its first floor. To the east across N. Murray Ave., the Greenwich Park Apartments apartment building opened in 2017. A Whole Foods grocery store opened in 2006 two blocks to the east as part of the expansion of the Columbia St. Mary’s Hospital. But all of those developments occupy much larger sites than the 8,683-square-foot parcel the couple is selling.

A potential redevelopment of the Paddy’s property, without acquiring more land, is likely to be more in line with the townhome developments that can be found in the blocks to the north than the developments along E. North Ave. to the south.

According to city assessment records, the couple sold two other East Side properties in 2019, 2204 E. Webster Pl. and 2208 E. Webster Pl. They also own the two-story duplex at 2466-2468 N. Murray Ave.

2013 Photo Gallery

Building Photos

UPDATE: Relying on earlier reporting, this article originally said Paddy’s opened in 1996. It opened in 1998.