“They paid for his trip over there, but he told them he wouldn’t take less than $500,000,” she told The Gazette in 2012. “I think he probably would have taken $350,000. He came back, saying, ‘Those bastards will never get the bar.’”
“Zoxx has been that place for people for years,” he continued. ““We’re the dive bar that you can go to when you’ve just had a really bad day. And you know, you’ve spent most of your paycheck already, and you just need a place to go and feel heard.”
“Can we still find a place and be in business and serve our community? Sure. I’m sure we can do that well, but it won’t be the bar we’ve had,” she said.
“Zoxx has been a destination,” Andy said, saying it’s “just kind of been a cozy little corner for people for a long time.”
“It’s not super fancy, and you don’t get a souvenir when you leave. But it’s still a destination for people to come to and share memories.”
The family envisioned Zoxx Social Club being theirs for years to come. Now, they’re not sure what’s next.
Desiree said that they haven’t yet been contacted by the city about relocating or what that would cost.
“I still work a full time job, this[the bar] is my retirement,” Andy Wilson said. “This was my kid’s future. Now what are we going to do?”
It wasn’t clear exactly which businesses near the former GM plant she was referring to at a city council meeting in February, but when asked how many of the 5 targeted businesses are “operational” Jimsi Kuborn, the city’s economic director, said “at least one that we know of.”
The Wilson says their bar is very much in business, and they say it hurt to hear the news that it was in line to be condemned.
Andy Wilson said Zoxx Social Club is not abandoned nor a place void of life; far from it, in fact.
He acknowledges that it’s in a rough area of the city but says it’s a family bar that serves the community.
“There’s people out there that will say ‘Zoxx is a dump’ and, ‘that’s where bad people go,’” he said. “I would encourage those people to come here any night of the week and have a conversation with our bartender or have a conversation with our patrons and they would change their mind immediately.”
Andy said that the bar hosts open mic nights, bands, dart tournaments every other Friday night that draw a regional crowd and is the site of the monthly gathering of the Janesville Deaf Club.
He jokes that when over 100 members of the Janesville Deaf Club pack the small bar wall to wall and “it’s the quietest room of over 100 people you’ll see.”
Andy Wilson, whose mother is deaf, said club members don’t otherwsie have a place to call their own, unlike in Madison, Elkhorn and Milwaukee where there are deaf clubs. In Janesville, home to the Wisconsin School for the Blind and Visually impaired, also located on the city’s southside, Zoxx became the place for them to gather.
“They have a space where they can be in a public setting and not feel awkward,” he said.
He said regulars stop in on those nights and are learning sign language to communicate with people who are deaf. He and three other bartenders sign and the bar donates back to the deaf club a portion of the proceeds made on the nights they gather there.
The bar also organizes drives to help employees who have fallen on hard times.
Andy Wilson said news about the potential relocation brought of the Janesville Deaf Club members to tears.
“Now we’re going to pull the rug out from underneath them,” he said.
“I really hope we can make it work,” if made to move, he said, but has his doubts as to the ultimate success of that plan.
“I don’t see relocation happening as seamlessly as they think it should,” he said.
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