Nautical Inn to Become Butch’s Bar II

Tom Alberts, a broker with Great Lakes Business Group, said he’s been working with Butch’s owner, Clarence Cumber Jr., to close on a sale this week for Cumber to open Butch’s Bar II in the building that housed the Nautical Inn at 234 Kentucky St. Photo by Kevin Boneske.

The site at the southeast corner of 3rd Avenue and Nebraska Street where Butch’s Bar once stood – before being destroyed by fire in Feburary and subsequently torn down – is now a vacant lot covered with gravel. Plans for its successor establishment do not call for rebuilding at that site, however.

Tom Alberts, a broker with Great Lakes Business Group, said he’s been working with Butch’s owner, Clarence Cumber Jr., to close on a sale this week for Cumber to open Butch’s Bar II in the building that housed the Nautical Inn at 234 Kentucky St.

The Sturgeon Bay Common Council approved on its consent agenda Tuesday night the surrender of the Nautical Inn’s Class B beer and liquor license at that location to Butch’s Bar II.

According to the licensing paperwork, John Harring Jr., a managing member of Captain JJ’s Nautical Inn, signed the liquor-license surrender document on May 4.

The license transfer was contingent upon correcting violations found in a Sturgeon Bay Fire Department inspection of the premises. Those violations related to items such as smoke and carbon-monoxide detectors, emergency lighting, a rear door handle, yearly maintenance on fire extinguishers, cooking hood system cleanliness, and electrical covers and splices.