After six years, the quirky supper-club-turned-music-venue the Gobbler Theater will host its first concert.
Country music veteran Terri Clark will headline the 405-seat, turkey-shaped venue in Johnson Creek June 6. Tickets, priced between $55 and $65, are available at gobblertheater.com.
Initially owned by turkey farm and turkey processing plant operator Clarence Hartwig, the Gobbler Supper Club first opened in 1969, earning a colorful reputation in part for its rotating bar and a 70,000-pound suspended dance floor known as “The Roost.” The supper club closed in 1992, with various restaurants coming and going at the location, until Dan Manesis transformed it into the Gobbler Theater.
The theater opened in 2015, hosting notable country artists such as LeAnn Rimes, Eli Young Band and Ronnie Milsap. The theater closed when the pandemic hit in 2020, and Manesis passed away after a battle with cancer in 2021.
In March, new ownership, led by Milwaukee native and former supper club patron Jim Weatherly, and Wisconsin concert promoter Jon Kaiser (who serves as general manager), bought the property for $1.2 million.
In an interview with the Journal Sentinel in March, Weatherly said he hopes the Gobbler will be the beginning of a new business venture with his co-owners that reopens dormant theaters.
“(It) was a great opportunity from not only a music standpoint, but to bring something back to a thriving, growing area directly between Milwaukee and Madison,” he said.
Kaiser in March told the Journal Sentinel he hopes the reopened Gobbler will host 80 to 100 shows its first year, including about “25 bigger national touring acts.”
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Gobbler Theater reopening with Terri Clark, first concert in six years
Reporting by Piet Levy, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
