Michail Takach
  · July 9 2021

June 1934: the Chez Paree (4507 W. Wisconsin Ave.) is the talk of the town, offering the "Boys Will Be Girls" drag show three times a night, six nights a week, with an extra raunchy "late show" that started at 2:30 a.m!  (Imagine working that show schedule, girls!)

Owner Joseph Budar, formerly the manager of the Fountain Inn, the Palm Garden, and the St. Charles and Royal Hotels, was well-known for supporting queer people.  His secret to maintaining a mixed crowd? Getting the audience loaded on "always free champagne" before, during and after the show.  Easy for him to do: he was the "king of Milwaukee nightlife," the godfather of the burlesque scene, and one of Wisconsin's most notorious bootleggers throughout Prohibition.

The Chez Paree offered a dance hall with a full brass orchestra five nights a week. The club was also known for its eight course dinners for just $1.  It was inspired by a glamorous Chicago nightclub of the same name (610 N. Fairbanks Ct.) 

Budar moved to Racine in 1937, and Chez Paree moved way out to 20th & Rawson.  Customers must have really struggled to find it, way back before the freeways, because every one of their ads includes extremely detailed directions. 

By June 1940, a bankrupt Budar was forced to sell the Chez Paree to new owners.  While the Chicago Chez Paree stayed open until 1960, it seems Milwaukee's Chez Paree closed sometime in 1946. It was still offering drag shows in its final summer -- something other cities had long ago banned.