Both Elizabeth “Bet-z” Boenning and the bar she owns look simple on the outside.
Boenning’s working uniform is jeans and a t-shirt. She keeps her hair short so her natural curls are easy to manage.
Her bar’s green awning just says Walker’s Pint, its name. Staff wear t-shirts with Walker’s Pint golden rule on the back: “Be nice or leave.”
For the past 20 years, Walker’s Pint has been a safe social space for the gay community, especially women.
“It’s open to everybody. I don’t want to exclude people. I know what it’s like to be excluded,” Boenning said.
A lesbian who has been with her wife for 14 years, Boenning said her family and friends are accepting, but that’s not always the case with strangers.
“Being out at bars, and people calling you a ‘dyke,’ and you’re not included, and you’re made fun of an dismissed as less than, it’s not a good feeling,” Boenning said. “I’ve really lucked out that I’ve had a great support system. There’s a lot of people who don’t have anything, so we try to make them feel welcome here.”
She has gay staff, straight staff, and people who are transitioning genders working for her. They are all welcome to join Boenning’s family at the Pint.
“I never thought we would have a community like this,” said Kristina Gibbons, who has worked at Walker’s Pint for many years. “We’ve gone through people who hate us and that protest us, and we’ve seen it all, especially during Pride(Fest). Just people treating us like garbage, so it’s nice to have a safe space.”
She said for years people would protest outside of the bar during the PrideFest Parade, which goes down 2nd Street past Walker’s Pint. She said it was much more common before gay marriage was legalized in 2014.
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“I just laugh now. It’s really sad to see someone have that much hate. We’re in here dancing to Cher. You have nothing else to do besides protest?” Gibbons said.
But it wasn’t easy for Gibbons to laugh it off the first few years that she experienced it.
“I come from a military family, so I’m not accepted,” Gibbons said of her sexuality. “So here I’m accepted, so I’m like OK, this is my place. I feel like a lot of people feel that. If their family has disowned them, or if they’re having a hard time with their sexuality, they can just come here and be themselves.”
Gibbons said she started working for Boenning 17 years ago, and then had to stop working for a period of time. She didn’t go into details on why she had to leave, but she said Boenning was forgiving of her and lether come back.
“She gave me another chance and I’ve been here ever since. It helped me turn my life around,” Gibbons said.
Beyond creating a welcoming environment for staff and gests, Boenning has run dozens of fundraisers for causes that pull at her heart strings, from multiple sclerosis to a friend whose dog needs an expensive surgery. She’s in the process of creating her own nonprofit organization to do more of that.
The history of Walker’s Pint
Boenning opened Walker’s Pint in July 2001. Previously, she had worked at Dish, a women’s bar in the 1990s. Dish transitioned to being more of a dance club, and then closed in 2000.
Boenning still wanted a space where she could just hang out, so she saved money to open her own bar.
She soon found an ad for a small bar at 818 N. 2nd St. with a patio and big windows.
“Most of the gay bars were dark. The buildings are from the industrial era, so no windows. And all the boy bars have the windows all blocked up,” she said. “I didn’t want to keep going to these dark places. I want to have just a regular bar with awesome windows, and get sunlight, and not have to hide anymore.”
Boenning said when she first purchased the bar she made a point to go to every neighboring bar to let them know they were moving in, and that everyone was welcome to come in.
“Back then, boys bars were kind of boys bars and you didn’t mix a lot. The staff that I had, and it was very small staff, I think it was three or four people, we made a point to let everyone know that we were here,” Boenning said. “We all agreed, like why weren’t we blending our crowds?”
She said she was especially close with neighboring Steny’s, a sports bar, and Fluid, a gay bar, across the street.
“On Sunday fundays before COVID, it just seemed like all the bar owners would run around to the other bars on the block,” she said.
Bill Wardlow, who owns Fluid, said he and Boenning became friends after Walker’s Pint opened.
“I just remember one day she came in. We both had been having difficulties like any bar owner has,” Wardlow said. “I asked her how she was doing, and she said ‘Stressed out. How are you doing?’ and I responded ‘Stressed out.’ The flood gates opened and we’ve been friends ever since.”
He said that Boenning is one of the most kind and generous people that he knows and he’s impressed with the fundraisers she hosts.
He also is impressed with the talent Boenning books on weekends, like DJ Shawna, who has gone onto be the Bucks official DJ, and Betsy Ade, who went onto have fame on the singing show “The Voice.”
“Bet-z is a great asset to Walker’s Point,” Wardlow said. “I’m grateful she moved in across the street.”
A Proud place
The Walker’s Point bars come together for the annual PrideFest, which has been canceled for a second consecutive year in 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
For Boenning, her most memorable weekend at Walker’s Pint was the PrideFest weekend in 2014 when gay marriage was legalized by the United States Supreme Court.
“The energy that was in this neighborhood was so positive. It passed that Friday. My wife and I went down to the courthouse and got married that Saturday. We came back and celebrated here,” Boenning said. “I still get chills thinking about it.”
Aside from PrideFest, Walker’s Pint thrives for a weekend in July when they throw a Scorpio party, since many bartenders from the Pint’s early days, including Boenning, are under the Zodiac sign of Scorpio.
When Boenning says she does everything for Walker’s Pint from the books to the bathrooms, that also included a drag performance for a Scorpio Party when their entertainment canceled last minute.
“She’s hilarious. She’s also a great friend and she’s very giving. I can’t say enough good things about her,” said Dre Boyer, a patron who bartended at Walker’s Pint 19 years ago.
Boyer is one of the Scorpios celebrants. She visited Walker’s Pint on a recent Tuesday for happy hour with another patron, Mary Crogan.
Crogan first went to Walker’s Pint because it was a lesbian bar. But now, in 2021, she doesn’t feel like she has to go to a gay bar to be with a partner of the same sex. Crogran said keeps coming back to the Pint because of its staff and its openness to everyone.
Crogan was visiting the bar to show the staff her 7-week-old puppy.
Her previous dog, Jackson, died a few weeks before. That dog’s name was on a plaque at the bar, and served as an unofficial mascot of Walker’s Pint.
Crogran said when the bar was slow Boenning would turn on the dance lights and the dog would chase the lights around the bar.
When Jackson was diagnosed with cancer at 3 years old, Boenning threw a party to raise money for his treatments. They raised enough money for the dog to get the medication it needed, and it lived for seven more years.
Gibbons also recalled how Boenning put together a fundraiser on a night Gibbons was supposed to go to a Gwen Stefani concert. Instead Gibbons donated her tickets and helped with the fundraiser at Walker’s Pint.
That night, a couple came in who couldn’t use their Gwen Stefani concert tickets. Boenning bought those tickets for Gibbons and told her to go have fun.
“It was just awesome for her to do that,” Gibbons said.
Forward Please
After 20 years of fundraising for different causes, Boenning created a nonprofit organization to help facilitate charitable ventures.
The 501(c)(3) is named Forward Please.
She got the name while chaperoning in Costa Rica for a school trip with her friend who is a Spanish teacher.
Boening, her friend, and about a dozen high school girls went whitewater rafting on the trip. Every time they hit a wave the girls shifted to the middle of the boat and freaked out, leaving Boenning, the teacher and the guide to paddle by themselves.
The guide said he would let them know when he really needed them to paddle by yelling “forward please.”
At first he would nonchalantly said “forward please,” but then as they hit more intense waves, he more intensely would scream “forward please,” but it didn’t do much to get the girls to paddle, and they eventually flipped.
Once the guide got everyone back in the boat, he explained that they all have to help each other move forward.
“He said, ‘We can’t just give up and cave in. We all have to paddle together to get to the end,'” Boenning said.
It spoke to Boenning.
She launched Forward Please with a golf outing on May 23 where they raised $2,000.
Of that money raised, Forward Please will donate $1,000 to Special Olympics in honor of Ken Kuemmerlein, a worker at Steny’s who died of COVID-19 in 2020.
The golf outing fell on his birthday so it only felt right that Kuemmerlein’s favorite cause be our first fundraising effort,” Boenning said.
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The rest of the money will be donated to other organizations as Forward Please hosts more events in the summer and fall.
Boenning wanted to make clear that Forward Please is a charity for anyone in need or facing disadvantages.
“I like to have options. I don’t want to have just one cause,” Boenning said.
She also will host a golf outing on Aug. 15 at Whitnall Park to raise money for Courage Milwaukee.
“No matter your background, when people have challenges and stuff, you come together and have each others backs, and solve problems and come up with the solutions,” Boenning said.
“My mom has always said, that its nice to be important, but its more important to be nice. I promote my staff to do that, and treat people like that,” Boenning said. “We just focus on being welcoming, nice, kind. And then the fun just happens.”
Jordyn Noennig covers Wisconsin culture and lifestyle. Follow her on Instagram @JordynTaylor_n. Find her on Twitter @JordynTNoennig. Call her at 262-446-6601 or email Jordyn.Noennig@jrn.com.
