Marcy Skowronski, colorful owner of Holler House bar known for its bras and bowling lanes, dies at 93

Sophie Carson | Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Marcy Skowronski was “always up to a little bit of no good.”

That’s how her son-in-law Tom Haefke described her after her death Thursday at age 93. Most people who met her would probably agree.

They remember the bawdy jokes she told behind the bar of the Holler House, the 111-year-old south side bar that boasts the country's oldest certified bowling lanes, and the tales of boozy hijinks with which she’d entertain customers young and old.

“She was a character,” Haefke said. “She was the reason the Holler House became kind of an institution here in Milwaukee.”

The tavern, 2042 W. Lincoln Ave., draws patrons from around the country and world. Maybe it’s the bowling lanes — where pins are reset by hand — or the decor — bras women took off during their visits and hung from the ceilings.

But the person who's kept them coming back was Skowronski. She was synonymous with the Holler House. Most online reviews of the bar mention her by name, and after her death most of the memories people recalled took place within the bar’s historic walls.

It was her life. Haefke remembers that at family gatherings and birthday parties over the years, Skowronski would visit for a few hours, then say, “Take me home now.”

“She wanted to be in her Holler House,” he said.

Skowronski lived nearly her entire life in the south side neighborhood of Lincoln Village that used to have a strong Polish presence. She attended Pulaski High School and frequented Mitchell Street shops.

She married Eugene “Gene” Skowronski, who was born in the apartment attached to the tavern, and in 1954 the two took over from Gene’s parents what was then called “Skowronski’s.”

In the '70s, legend goes that a woman dragged her intoxicated husband from the bar and complained about the noise coming from inside. It was renamed the Holler House. After Gene died in 1990, Marcy took over ownership.

As a girl, Kelly Novak Tchorz, now of Boston, went every Sunday to the Holler House with her grandparents. They were friends with Gene and Marcy Skowronski, and Tchorz remembers Marcy’s “funny, sassy” attitude and her big Nesco slow cookers filled with food.

A picky eater, Tchorz once saw Marcy Skowronski was serving brats — a food Tchorz didn’t like.

“Who the hell doesn’t like brats in Milwaukee?” Tchorz remembers Skowronski exclaiming.

“She could be intimidating if you were a kid,” Tchorz said. But the memory is a fond one for her. It’s a throwback to Sundays spent with all the neighborhood couples who’d come each week, with Skowronski, “the master of ceremonies,” holding court behind the bar.

“You would go there to see them,” Tchorz said, referring to Gene and Marcy Skowronski. “Her in particular.”

Skowronski was as Milwaukee as slow cooker brats on a Sunday. She loved the Milwaukee Brewers and once met outfielder Ryan Braun in the dugout — “I thought she was going to lose her mind,” Haefke said.

One of her favorite T-shirts has the Polish word for Brewers, “Piwowarzy,” emblazoned on the front — maybe the most Milwaukee thing possible. Chris Clark, now of Phoenix, remembers visiting the Holler House a few years ago and noticed a line of Brewers bobbleheads on the bar all facing away from the customers.

Why are they facing the wrong way? Clark asked. “Because they play like s---!” Skowronski replied.

“She had the funniest stories and it was just a hoot to listen to her,” Clark said.

For as much as Skowronski was “salty and cantankerous,” as Haefke described her, she loved her friends like family, he said. If there was any food at the Holler House, Skowronski had cooked it herself.

Every year she baked 30,000 Christmas cookies for her customers and bowling leagues, Haefke said. And one day after her death, the family had people baking cookies in her honor.

The future of the Holler House is uncertain. Skowronski’s two daughters and their husbands are all either retired or close to it. They run the tavern as a hobby these days, Haefke said, and sometime later they’ll have to discuss what’s next.

The bar was full of people Friday night who’d heard the news about their beloved Marcy and came to pay their respects.

“We can feel her,” Haefke said. “We know she’s here.”

For her visitation, which is Sunday, Skowronski had asked attendees to wear their Holler House-branded gear.

Skowronski herself will be buried in a Holler House T-shirt. That way she’ll always be close to the tavern she loved so much.

Skowronski is survived by her sister Virginia; her daughters, Sharon and Catherine; their husbands, Todd Stuckert and Tom Haefke; two grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

Visitation will be from 3 to 7 p.m. Sunday, with a eulogy at 6 p.m., at Max A. Sass & Sons funeral home, 4747 S. 60th St. The funeral mass will take place at 10:30 a.m. Monday at St. Mary Catholic Faith Community, 9520 W. Forest Home Ave., Hales Corners.

Contact Sophie Carson at (414) 223-5512 or scarson@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter at @SCarson_News.