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Uhle’s: the doyen of Milwaukee smokeshops

Milwaukee, Wisconsin, May 30 – We’re on the road again, visiting family and friends in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and, of course, visiting the city’s famed downtown tobacco institution, Uhle’s, at 114 West Wisconsin Avenue, next to the Milwaukee River.

It’s been 23 years since Jeff and Jim Steinbock bought the store from founder Jack Uhle in 1982, but there’s been a touch of sadness since Uhle died on May 17 at age 90. He’d been in the store just a couple of weeks prior to get some cigars for his 90th birthday on April 23.

But that didn’t stop the regulars from filing in last Saturday morning to buy their favorites, sit in the comfortable lounge and check out the extensive pipe selection, or one of Uhle’s well-known tobacco blends.

Jeff Steinbock noted that although Uhle’s has its own, private-label cigars (both handmade, by Caribe Imported Cigars in Honduras, and machine-made, by the House of Windsor), the premium lines sell best. And Uhle’s has a complete assortment, including its status as a Davidoff Appointed Merchant.

“Our hottest seller is the Ashton VSG,” said Jeff, “although the Heritage and Cabinets are also good, in fact, all of the Ashtons do well. Naturally, Fuente is a strong seller, especially the 8-5-8 and anything in the Hemingway Series. And Punch does very well, as does Padron.”

Although Uhle made the shop famous for his pipe tobacco blends, cigars are still the biggest seller. “Pipes and tobacco are steady, though,” according to Jeff.

The 1,595-square-foot retail store is only the tip of the Uhle’s empire, however. Like an iceberg, most of its mass is underground through a maze of staircases and corridors. There’s the former walk-in freezer which is now a humidor. The back storeroom which is actually under the waterline of the River and used to have a window that looked out on the water. And the famed tobacco blending room in which Uhle used to create his blends by hand, with the same blending box still in use today.

And Jeff’s private pipe-making room, a workshop of every imaginable drilling, buffing and polishing machine that he uses to create custom pipes “when I have time,” he said. Half a dozen briar pipes were in various stages of manufacture.

There’s a second humidor, office space and a shipping space for their mail-order business, primarily dealing with pipe tobacco, but also other items. There are elevators that don’t work, staircases that lead nowhere and loading facilities from the street level. The only thing missing was the underground bar and the illicit card game . . .

Back on the street level, voices were being raised in debate in the lounge, a comfortable corner of the store with leather chair-seating for six. There are some 750 members of the club, at a lifetime dues payment of $35. “Obviously, we can’t host them all at one time,” noted Jeff.

There’s also no television, as the Steinbocks prefer their club to be about conversation and interaction rather than watching the tube. But what about if the Packers are playing?

Says Jeff, in a quiet voice: “I have a five-inch TV stashed away, just in case.”

The store has had some wild moments. Jeff and Jim recalled an area scandal that erupted in 2000 during the hotly-contested Presidential campaign between George W. Bush and Al Gore. A Democratic operative rushed into the store and breathlessly asked for several cartons of cigarettes, paid in cash and hustled out of the store to a waiting sedan. Later, it turned out that the cigarettes were handed out to homeless and others in nearby areas in order to get them to go to the polls – in provided transportation – to vote. The “Smokes for Votes” scandal resulted in action by the District Attorney and a hefty fine was paid.

Uhle himself was an unlikely success story. According to the Steinbocks and a salutary obituary in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Uhle was the youngest of 14 children and while working for the Greyhound Bus Co., got an opportunity to open a news and sundries stand at the company’s downtown Milwaukee depot in 1939.

His wife Dorothy ran the store while Uhle served during World War II. Upon his return, he decided to expand into a new location featuring tobacco at 232 West Michigan Street. That’s where the Uhle tobacco legend really started. In the 1950s, he began blending his own pipe tobaccos and created a widely-respected brand which continues to this day.

The store moved to West Wisconsin Avenue and was remodeled in 1996. When the remodeling was completed and the move was being made from the temporary quarters to the “new” store, Jeff and Jim remembered that despite signs which said the store was closed, regulars kept coming in and while the brothers kept the register running, many of the customers actually helped move the store into its new location!

It’s an old-fashioned kind of smokeshop, with cigars displayed in glass cases and attentive service that builds relationships as well as sales. No self-service, walk-in humidor here; you get to talk to a real person about what you want to smoke. There’s a complete selection of accessories and a separate room to display dozens of pipes, some imported and some made downstairs!

And Uhle’s shows no signs of slowing down. They supply cigars to the elegant Mo’s, A Place for Steaks a couple of doors down and are an unmistakable part of the fabric of downtown Milwaukee.
~ Rich Perelman

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