The Essen Haus is still open after all ... for now

The manager of the Essen Haus said he gets 10 to 20 calls a day from people wondering if the longtime German restaurant and bar and is still open.

That's not counting the calls his staff takes, Neale Hansen said. "You almost can't count it because you're getting (the questions) from so many directions, not just the phone."

The Essen Haus and its companion bar, the Come Back In , are open, just with reduced hours, since they were originally set to close at the end of August in anticipation of the redevelopment of the buildings.

The timeline has changed due to holdups with the real estate deal, said Bob Worm, who opened the Essen Haus and Come Back In, Downtown on the 500 block of East Wilson Street 42 years ago.

"Things didn't go as originally planned. So yes, things are delayed," Worm said. "It could be several months, it could be several years."

The deal hasn't fallen through, it's just taking time, Worm said. "We're still open and viable."

Worm said the developer, JCap Real Estate of Eau Claire, is having trouble with financing. He's had two other interested developers, but changing course now would entail going through the whole process again, he said.

"It's not that the property is not unvaluable or nobody wants it, it's just that it's hard," Worm said. "It took us 2 1/2 years to get this far, just with one developer."

In June, the City Council gave final approval for JCap to build an eight-story, 178-unit apartment building and six-story, 100-room hotel on the site. The Essen Haus will be torn down for the apartment building, but the hotel project involves rebuilding the façades of the Come Back In and a neighboring building.

A sign on the door to the Essen Haus says, "Welcome! We have no closing date at this time. We are still here to show you the best time possible until our very last day!"

The restaurant is taking reservations for its family-style Thanksgiving dinner and has bands booked for New Year's Eve, Worm said. It's open Thursday, Friday, Saturday nights with polka bands each night, while the Come Back In is open Thursday through Monday nights with bands on Saturdays and an open mic on Mondays.

Essen Haus' monthly Stein Club was on Wednesdays and won't make a comeback, Worm said.

Brian Johnson, principal of JCap, said there's no closing date set for the sale, and although he has an investor on the apartment side, he's still looking for one or two investors for the hotel side.

"It's taken longer to raise the money," Johnson said. "I'd hate to put any dates (out) because we just don't know. I mean, it could be three months, it could be 12 months."

He said he did another project in Madison on the West Side called Midtown Commons. He bought the land, got approved for 240 units, but before developing it, sold the land to another developer.

Madison is a "very strong market and we love the demand with apartments and hotels in the market," Johnson said.

JCap's project would be next to the 15-room Hotel Ruby Marie on the corner of East Wilson and South Blair streets. It was built in 1875 and renovated by Worm in 2000 and named after his mother. The development will spare the Ruby Marie, but Worm will no longer own it, JCap will.

The Up North bar, another business Worm owns on the block, isn't being torn down, either. Worn won't own it, and the couple who run it now will continue to operate it under JCap.

Worm, who tangled with the city in the summer of 2022 when it stopped allowing live music behind the Come Back In and the Up North, said the neighborhood is on board with the new development.

"They prefer that than what they have here now, let's say. So they must be happy," he said.

The Essen Haus and Come Back In closed prematurely on Aug. 31 and gave employees a 10-day vacation. The businesses opened up with modified hours and fewer employees on Sept. 12. Where the businesses had a combined 60 to 80 employees, now they are running with about 30, Worm said.

Worm had an online auction in the interim of all the unwanted items he had in the attic and in the basement, which he said went well. He got rid of some memorabilia, but nothing that hangs on the walls, he said.

The businesses were jammed for about a month before the original August closing date, Worm and Hansen said.

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