Shaker's Cigar Bar Original Ghost Tour

Booking

I made a reservation for me and Sev the same day as the tour here . Prices vary each day of booking, and ours were $25 each for the “Original Shaker’s Tour,” which takes 60 minutes.

Other tours are available that also look really interesting, like the 90 minute “Shakers Ghost Tour 2.0” but unfortunately we did not have time for that one.

Pre-Tour

We showed up about 20 minutes early and were actually the only people on the tour, which was awesome.

We sat at the bar while we waited and had a water. The inside looks really cool, and as we learned later, the bar is original from Al Capone’s days.

Tour: Bar

We met our guide, Mike, and started the tour by going around the building, to a secret entrance used in the prohibition era.

The entrance led to the bar we had just been waiting in.

We went in the women’s bathroom where we learned about the ghost of a little girl who likes to hang out there, who had apparently died before the building was developed, when it was just a cemetery.

Then we went to the basement and heard more stories of ghostly encounters.

Because the bar was built on a cemetery, developers found a lot of bones underground using ground penetrating radar, but they also found two newer bodies buried in a corner—likely victims of gangsters. The bodies are encased in concrete so the new owner left them there, putting skeletons up to show where they are.

There was a false staircase people dealing with the gangs might have tried to escape through—to no avail.

The basement also holds a heavy safe that has never been opened. We were invited to give it a try but didn’t have any luck.

Tour: Brothel

Upstairs from the bar there’s a restored brothel from the early 1900s. where many girls worked at a time. We heard about their sad stories and difficult lives.

On the third floor is one large apartment, which hosted one particularly charming prostitute at a time. These top-performers could charge high prices for their services.

One such prostitute, Molly, was extremely popular, until she was murdered and dismembered in this apartment at the age of 18. The current owner of the bar, Bob Weiss, found her charred bones in the walls during restoration, later burying them.

People can book a night in this apartment for $350, and some have recorded mysterious events, like waking up to their belongings scattered around the room. I would definitely want to check that out! Maybe next time.

Post-Tour

We took tons of pictures of all the rooms to see if we could capture a ghost, although nothing turned up on our photos. We also didn’t experience anything particularly spooky, but we did really enjoy listening to all the stories.

We got drinks at the bar afterwards and chatted with one of the maintenance workers who happened to be sitting next to me. He had a lot of interesting stories to tell as well about the creepy things that have happened to him in the building.

This bar is well known for its absinthe, and Sev got a cocktail for $15. I just had a regular beer. The bar overall had a really nice vibe and I think would be fun to visit for dinner and drinks.

Conclusion

We had a lot of fun at the Shakers ghost tour and would recommend it to our readers who need stuff to do at night in Milwaukee.