By: Chris Duffy
“Vicenzi’s” will soon be located in the old Schauer and Schumacher building at the intersection of Adams Street and Walnut Street.

But some city leaders don’t want it there.
John Solberg and Brandon Vicenzi are a couple of young entrepreneurs from Green Bay.


“We’re pretty much starting straight from scratch,” said Vicenzi.

They’ve been friends since they were little, but now they have a big, $1.3 million dollar plan to revamp this old furniture store.

“We just, I guess, fell in love with it right away,” said Solberg.

It’s on a popular downtown corner, but it’s been empty for seven years.

“I feel fortunate because anything that would’ve went in there I think would have succeeded,” said Solberg, Vicenzi’s owner.

With a goal of opening by the end of the year, they want to attract to the working professionals of downtown, saying they want to utilize the close proximity to the courthouse.

They’ll serve coffee and pastries in the morning, sandwiches for lunch and cocktails at night.

“We’re not another nightclub where we’re going to have this overwhelming music and the younger crowd, we’re actually targeting the business person,” said Vicenzi.

But the alderman for this district says, enough is enough.

There are already two other bars right next door to this property, and two other ones right across the street.

That’s why she says, they don’t need another one.

“I think that’s simply too high of a concentration,” said Celestine Jeffrys, Green Bay Alderman.

Jeffrys voted to not give Vicenzi’s its liquor license.

“Last night, it seemed that the moratorium that we, I thought we had in place was a non-issue, and I simply do not understand why that is,” said Jeffrys.

But her opinion is overshadowed by the majority of city leaders who want to give a couple of eager young men from Green Bay, a chance to succeed.