Aunt Ethel's Adult Emporium plugs De Pere into adult arcade fun | Streetwise

Jeff Bollier | Green Bay Press-Gazette

Show Caption Hide Caption Aunt Ethel's Adult Emporium opens in De Pere Take a look inside De Pere's new bar-arcade combo that opened on Main Avenue in early November.

DE PERE - Aunt Ethel has her eyes on downtown De Pere once again.

Local legend says Aunt Ethel arrived in De Pere in 1870s, after posing as a man to fight in the Civil War. She eventually opened a tavern in West De Pere and was a vocal opponent of De Pere and West De Pere merging in 1889, going so far as to fire a few shots from a derringer into the ceiling during one debate on the matter.

The mysterious figure disappeared, never to be heard from again ... until Tim and Casey Jelinski decided Ethel was the perfect personification of their new arcade and bar, Aunt Ethel's Adult Emporium, 377 Main Ave., in De Pere.

The Jelinksis, who opened the artlessBastard gallery further down Main Avenue in spring, said Aunt Ethel's came together as they mulled different ways to add more entertainment to downtown De Pere's mix of art, theater, restaurants and bars.

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They came up with an arcade that's more Chuck E. Cheese than Port Plaza's Gold Mine. There's Skee-Ball, bubble hockey, basketball skill shots, a claw game, four-player Pac Man and more available. Each game costs two to three tokens, and some games will give you tickets you can redeem for prizes ranging from penny candy up to thermal shirts and flasks. All of this can be done while enjoying beer and wine, much of it local.

"We're not just a bar and not just an arcade. We're this mixture of items that makes for a good night out," Casey Jelinski said. "It's a cheap, easy, fun date that's not just staring each other across the dinner table. Our generation wants something to do that's new, yet familiar."

When they saw the building at 377 Main Ave., a vacant building that used to house an Erbert and Gerbert's, they knew they wanted to revive a historic building that had been a hardware store, furniture store and laundromat in the 1800s and 1900s.

"This was too cool of a building to leave vacant or let rot," Casey said. "It's such a good block here that needed something."

Aunt Ethel's is available to book for private events. You can contact the Jelinski's via Aunt Ethel's Facebook page or by stopping by during normal hours, 4-11 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday.

We here at Streetwise are fans of a place where you can enjoy an adult beverage and show off your Skee-Ball skills at the same time.

Aunt Ethel's is the second such bar-arcade combo in the area, but it appears the first one, Press Start Rec Room, 830 Vanderperren Way, in Ashwaubenon, didn't make it more than a few months in business.

Press Start's space appears empty now, all signs have been removed ,and its social media and website no longer exist.