Wisconsin Senate Candidate Eric Hovde Plans to Tear Down Dive Bar

When Josh Napravnik moved to Madison, Wisconsin, in his twenties he found a second home at a “delightfully grimy cash-only bar” one block from the state capitol. The Silver Dollar Tavern was a place where you could spend an afternoon doing crossword puzzles at the bar, the only spot in town that played Thursday Night Football, and where he and his friends invariably ended up at the end of a long night out, splitting pitchers of cheap beer. 

One frigid January night, Napravnik showed up at the Silver Dollar to meet his friends — and ended up meeting his future wife. On their wedding night years later, the couple and all their friends ended up back at the bar after the ceremony and reception, where they toasted the good fortune of finding each other. 

On Feb. 3, the Silver Dollar poured its last pitchers of beer, just weeks before the head of the company that led a relentless, multi-decade campaign to buy and demolish the bar announced his intention to run for U.S. Senate.

The oldest family-owned bar in Madison, the Silver Dollar Tavern grew into a beloved Madison institution, the site of seemingly countless memories like Napravnik’s that came pouring out as patrons memorialized the Madison landmark. As one long-time bartender told a local radio station earlier this month on the occasion of the bar’s last night in business: “everyone from the gutter to the Governor’s office” could be comfortable at the Silver Dollar. Over nine decades, it played host to meet-cutes, to multiple “celebrations of life,” and one former resident recalled fondly that he and his brother were “practically raised there.”

Eric Hovde, the CEO of Hovde Properties, is challenging Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.) for her seat. Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke and businessman Scott Mayer have also entertained the possibility of running, but it is Hovde who has the backing of Republican leader Mitch McConnell and the National Republican Senatorial Committee. This will be Hovde’s second Senate bid; he lost the 2012 GOP primary to then-Gov. Tommy Thompson, whom Baldwin later defeated in the general election.

Eric Hovde’s father, Don, first sought to purchase and demolish the Silver Dollar Tavern more than a quarter century ago, after he successfully bought the block’s four other buildings through a limited liability corporation in 1996. At the time, Don Hovde likened the challenge of convincing the property’s longtime owners to sell to diplomatic efforts in the Middle East.

“It’s like, ‘Can the president put a peace accord together with the Israelis and Palestinians?’” Don Hovde told the Wisconsin State Journal at the time. “That’s a much more major global issue, but negotiations are a very tender thing. So, you have to be careful when you are in a state of negotiation.” (Bill Teasdale, then the co-owner of the bar, said at the time that the real obstacle was Hovde’s low-ball offer: “What we have is 25 years of putting into this business and then he comes around and just wants to give us some walking-around money.”)

The owners refused to sell, setting off what many locals considered a years-long pressure campaign. In 2000, Hovde Properties sought permission to tear down the buildings around Silver Dollar Tavern and build a parking lot. Local officials rejected the plan, which at the time was viewed as an attempt to force the Silver Dollar’s owners to cave. (“I think they want to get everything else knocked down so it leaves us hanging,” Jim Teasdale said at the time.) 

In the years that followed, Hovde Properties kept the buildings vacant, as the company floated and abandoned plans for the block, including one to build a new museum for the state’s historical society on the site. (In a recent interview, Hovde claimed that the project didn’t move forward for political reasons: “He feels it was because Governor Evers didn’t want a conservative developing the project.”) 

The empty buildings blighted the block, ultimately earning a complaint from city inspectors that they weren’t being properly maintained. As the State Journal reported in 2019: “The strip of buildings, acquired by Hovde more than 20 years ago and long held vacant for redevelopment, have made the area uninviting as a pedestrian thoroughfare, especially at night. The buildings are … plagued by negative and criminal behavior.”

Somewhat abruptly, in November, Chuck Teasdale, the fourth-generation owner of the bar, confirmed that he was closing the bar and that Hovde Properties had an option to buy it. Teasdale declined to disclose the terms of the deal in an interview with the State Journal, citing a non-disclosure agreement.  

After 25 years of trying, Hovde’s real estate company finally announced plans to demolish the Silver Dollar the same month. The company has not said what it plans to do with the location. Neither Teasdale nor a representative for Hovde Properties responded to a request for comment.

There are rumors that the owner could reopen a Silver Dollar elsewhere in town, but he hasn’t confirmed them. “We feel fortunate to have been part of it with all of you for so many years, and that will remain whether or not our family is able to find an appropriate new home for the kind of bar we all love,” Teasdale said in a statement to the State Journal last year.

Napravnik himself admits to mixed feelings about the closure of the Silver Dollar. “I’m somebody who generally is pretty pro-development and anti-nostalgia,” he says, but he thinks that Hovde Properties handled the situation badly. “This is somebody who left properties derelict for [more than] 24 years, just waiting for the right payout.” To him, it feels like a person who cared very little about the experience of the people who actually lived in the city of Madison. “It just feels a little gross, and highlights a bit of his out-of-touchness.” 

In addition to acting as president and CEO of Hovde Properties, Eric Hovde is the president and CEO of H. Bancorp, and chairman and CEO of its subsidiary, Sunwest Bank; Hovde has called those banks his “main business.” Hovde, who was born and raised in Wisconsin, purchased a $7 million dollar home in Laguna Beach, California, in 2018, a short drive to H. Bancorp offices in Irvine. In subsequent years, Wisconsin Democrats have noted, he’s been named the most influential people in Laguna Beach three years in a row.

When Josh Napravnik moved to Madison, Wisconsin, in his twenties he found a second home at a “delightfully grimy cash-only bar” one block from the state capitol. The Silver Dollar Tavern was a place where you could spend an afternoon doing crossword puzzles at the bar, the only spot in town that played Thursday Night Football, and where he and his friends invariably ended up at the end of a long night out, splitting pitchers of cheap beer. 

One frigid January night, Napravnik showed up at the Silver Dollar to meet his friends — and ended up meeting his future wife. On their wedding night years later, the couple and all their friends ended up back at the bar after the ceremony and reception, where they toasted the good fortune of finding each other. 

On Feb. 3, the Silver Dollar poured its last pitchers of beer, just weeks before the head of the company that led a relentless, multi-decade campaign to buy and demolish the bar announced his intention to run for U.S. Senate.

The oldest family-owned bar in Madison, the Silver Dollar Tavern grew into a beloved Madison institution, the site of seemingly countless memories like Napravnik’s that came pouring out as patrons memorialized the Madison landmark. As one long-time bartender told a local radio station earlier this month on the occasion of the bar’s last night in business: “everyone from the gutter to the Governor’s office” could be comfortable at the Silver Dollar. Over nine decades, it played host to meet-cutes, to multiple “celebrations of life,” and one former resident recalled fondly that he and his brother were “practically raised there.”

Eric Hovde, the CEO of Hovde Properties, is challenging Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.) for her seat. Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke and businessman Scott Mayer have also entertained the possibility of running, but it is Hovde who has the backing of Republican leader Mitch McConnell and the National Republican Senatorial Committee. This will be Hovde’s second Senate bid; he lost the 2012 GOP primary to then-Gov. Tommy Thompson, whom Baldwin later defeated in the general election.

Eric Hovde’s father, Don, first sought to purchase and demolish the Silver Dollar Tavern more than a quarter century ago, after he successfully bought the block’s four other buildings through a limited liability corporation in 1996. At the time, Don Hovde likened the challenge of convincing the property’s longtime owners to sell to diplomatic efforts in the Middle East.

“It’s like, ‘Can the president put a peace accord together with the Israelis and Palestinians?’” Don Hovde told the Wisconsin State Journal at the time. “That’s a much more major global issue, but negotiations are a very tender thing. So, you have to be careful when you are in a state of negotiation.” (Bill Teasdale, then the co-owner of the bar, said at the time that the real obstacle was Hovde’s low-ball offer: “What we have is 25 years of putting into this business and then he comes around and just wants to give us some walking-around money.”)

The owners refused to sell, setting off what many locals considered a years-long pressure campaign. In 2000, Hovde Properties sought permission to tear down the buildings around Silver Dollar Tavern and build a parking lot. Local officials rejected the plan, which at the time was viewed as an attempt to force the Silver Dollar’s owners to cave. (“I think they want to get everything else knocked down so it leaves us hanging,” Jim Teasdale said at the time.) 

In the years that followed, Hovde Properties kept the buildings vacant, as the company floated and abandoned plans for the block, including one to build a new museum for the state’s historical society on the site. (In a recent interview, Hovde claimed that the project didn’t move forward for political reasons: “He feels it was because Governor Evers didn’t want a conservative developing the project.”) 

The empty buildings blighted the block, ultimately earning a complaint from city inspectors that they weren’t being properly maintained. As the State Journal reported in 2019: “The strip of buildings, acquired by Hovde more than 20 years ago and long held vacant for redevelopment, have made the area uninviting as a pedestrian thoroughfare, especially at night. The buildings are … plagued by negative and criminal behavior.”

Somewhat abruptly, in November, Chuck Teasdale, the fourth-generation owner of the bar, confirmed that he was closing the bar and that Hovde Properties had an option to buy it. Teasdale declined to disclose the terms of the deal in an interview with the State Journal, citing a non-disclosure agreement.  

After 25 years of trying, Hovde’s real estate company finally announced plans to demolish the Silver Dollar the same month. The company has not said what it plans to do with the location. Neither Teasdale nor a representative for Hovde Properties responded to a request for comment.

There are rumors that the owner could reopen a Silver Dollar elsewhere in town, but he hasn’t confirmed them. “We feel fortunate to have been part of it with all of you for so many years, and that will remain whether or not our family is able to find an appropriate new home for the kind of bar we all love,” Teasdale said in a statement to the State Journal last year.

Napravnik himself admits to mixed feelings about the closure of the Silver Dollar. “I’m somebody who generally is pretty pro-development and anti-nostalgia,” he says, but he thinks that Hovde Properties handled the situation badly. “This is somebody who left properties derelict for [more than] 24 years, just waiting for the right payout.” To him, it feels like a person who cared very little about the experience of the people who actually lived in the city of Madison. “It just feels a little gross, and highlights a bit of his out-of-touchness.” 

In addition to acting as president and CEO of Hovde Properties, Eric Hovde is the president and CEO of H. Bancorp, and chairman and CEO of its subsidiary, Sunwest Bank; Hovde has called those banks his “main business.” Hovde, who was born and raised in Wisconsin, purchased a $7 million dollar home in Laguna Beach, California, in 2018, a short drive to H. Bancorp offices in Irvine. In subsequent years, Wisconsin Democrats have noted, he’s been named the most influential people in Laguna Beach three years in a row.