Last call: Surviving member of the 'Mader's Entertainers' returns for a final toast

MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) — The mood at one of Milwaukee's most famous restaurants has forever changed. For more than three decades, a pair of friends carried on a weekly tradition of spending Friday afternoons in the same two barstools.

Bill Altenbach and Dick Neu made agreement over the years. They'd continue their tradition until one of them passed. After that, the person who survived would return for a final toast to 'Dick and Bill.'

That toast happened this past January. Richard Charles Neu died on December 21 at the age of 83.

Altenbach met with a CBS 58 crew on a recent Friday in January. He sat at the stool in front of a small, engraved plate bearing his name.

To Altenbach's left, a stool sat empty in front of the spot where a similar plate for Neu was attached to the bar.

At Neu's spot, Altenbach placed a half-filled mug of beer.

"Here's to Dick. Here's my buddy, Dick. Here's to you, Dick," Altenbach said, raising Dick's glass. "Wherever you are, I hope you're in a good place because I'm coming up right behind you."

Their tradition began when Altenbach joined Neu on the faculty at Gateway Technical College.

"Dick introduced himself to me. He says, 'Hey, we're looking for a guy we can go out and have a couple beers with at noon. Do you want to come?'" Altenbach said. "I said, 'Yeah, sounds good to me.' He says, I want to warn you, 'When we have a couple beers, it's more than one.' I said, 'Don't worry about it, I can handle it.'"

Over the next 30-plus years, the pair greeted hundreds of different guests, from locals to visitors.

Bar Manager Jackie Porrett said she'd met the two men when she started as a server and was asked to fill in one Friday behind the bar.

Over the years, she came to see them as a Mader's institution.

"They'd stop people on their way in," she recalled. "[And] be like, 'Food's over there, but the fun's right here.' And people would sit and stay. It was great."

Altenbach said the conversations they had at the corner of the Mader's bar was how he measured how good a particular Friday was.

Now undergoing weekly treatments for multiple myeloma, Altenbach, 85, conceded he now finds himself in a strange place.

He's not quite willing to give up the tradition.

"I miss his company. Because of that, I miss the BS we've got going on with other people. I miss that," Altenbach said. "It ain't gonna stop me from living. I can tell you that, pure and simple."

Altenbach is aware the agreement with Neu called for the weekly meetups to end after one of them passed.

However, he said Neu would understand.

While he won't come back every Friday — the two men alternated taking turns driving each other from the Highway 20 park-and-ride in Racine County — Altenbach said he wanted to occasionally come back on Fridays to drink with "apprentices" he and Neu befriended over the years.

"I've got aches and pains, don't get me wrong, but I can still move around," Altenbach said. "As long as I can do that and enjoy a beer, well, why not?"