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This classic neon sign at Lake Aire Restaurant, 804 W. Main St. in downtown Lake Geneva, dates to 1950. A few years back, the sign served as a retro-nostalgic backdrop for a Harley-Davidson magazine advertisement promoting the roll-out of a new motorcycle.
At Lake Aire, 804 W. Main St. in downtown Lake Geneva, George Argiropoulos has overseen stewardship of the restaurant’s the classic circa-1950 neon sign since 1984. It’s a calling not for the faint of heart or thin of wallet, with Argorpoulos investing $5,500-6,000 in a complete sign overhaul a decade ago. While “maintaining a neon sign is a pain in the butt,” Argiropoulos said it’s well worth the hassle, given the sign’s popularity and his longstanding desire to “keep the uniqueness of the old town look” of downtown Lake Geneva. Said Argiropoulos of the sign, “We’d like to keep it as long as we can. To do a new sign like this, I don’t know what it would cost. I don’t know that they’d even do it anymore.”
At Bruno’s Liquors, 524 Broad St., owner Jim Sharkus is the third generation to oversee the store’s circa-1960 neon sign: “I hear from people about it all the time. People are intrigued by it. Everybody wants to stop and take a picture with it. It’s an icon. Anybody that’s been to Lake Geneva knows that sign. It’s a pretty much a landmark. It’s very cool we’ve had it in the family that long.”
The roadside sign at The Cheese Box, 802 S. Wells St., once the old U.S. Hwy. 12 alignment, was built by Milwaukee-based Everbright Sign Co. in 1940. The granddaddy of vintage neon signage in Lake Geneva at 82 years old, Cheese Box owners John and Cheri Borowiec hope to someday restore and “fire up” the old sign, which continues to attract a steady stream of nostalgic picture-takers.
“I feel a bit like the Willy Wonka of neon. If you could eat neon, chocolate would be the next best thing.”—Matthew Bracey, neon artist
Growing up in the infinitely colorful if waning heydays of neon in 1960s and 1970s Milwaukee, like Bracey I’m an inveterate fanboy of classic neon. I’m always at the ready to tuck into a heaping helping of retro-nostalgic old school neon.
Lighting up the dark night skies and downtown landscapes with a radiant glow, neon signs — essentially writing with light with glass tubes and electrically-charged noble gasses like namesake neon, argon, helium, xenon, krypton and mercury vapor — have made a bold, colorful advertising statement for more than a century.
Eleven years after “father of neon” Georges Claude installed the world’s first neon sign at a Parisian barber shop in 1912, the first neon signs arrived on U.S. shores after two orange and blue neon Packard signs were installed at Earle C. Anthony’s car dealership in Los Angeles, spurring traffic jams by slack-jawed onlookers. In short order, the neon sign craze made its way to Wisconsin.
Since hanging my wordsmith’s fedora at the Regional News back on Feb. 28, I’ve been in my neon-crazed element in Lake Geneva, where vintage neon is still holding forth at a dedicated handful of neon-loving businesses, some familar from childhood visits to the city waaaay back in the day.
At Bruno’s Liquors, 524 Broad St., Jim Sharkus is the third generation to oversee the store’s circa-1960 sign, with its red cursive “Bruno’s” name, mint green martini glass and deep ruby red cherry. The sign was first installed for his dad’s tavern, Bruno’s Pink Isle, which was transitioned into a liquor store in 1974.
“I hear from people about it all the time,” Sharkus said of his sign. “People are intrigued by it. Everybody wants to stop and take a picture with it. Must be a lot of people named Bruno out there. We’ve had movie producers come and offer us a lot of money for it to put it in movies. It’s not for sale. You can’t really replace something like that. It’s irreplaceable. It’s an icon. Anybody that’s been to Lake Geneva knows that sign. It’s a pretty much a landmark. It’s very cool we’ve had it in the family that long.”
With stewardship for the iconic sign comes “a lot of responsibility to keep it going” according to Sharkus, whose father, store namesake Bruno, passed away at 98 on Jan. 29.
“It’s hard to upkeep it,” he noted. “It’s a lot of maintenance, a lot of upkeep, to keep those things together. It’s expensive, but it’s worth every penny.”
A look at old archival photos of downtown Lake Geneva from decades ago show a community filled with neon signage, Today, only a grandfathered handful of neon signs like the one at Bruno’s survive.
“The city, they don’t want to have neons or lighted signs like that,” Sharkus said. “They’re pretty anti-sign in this town, so whatever you’ve got up you’ve really got to maintain because you cannot replace them here. Once they’re down, they’re gone. That’s unfortunate. I think it’d be cool to see more of the vintage signs like that. I understand that they don’t want it looking like the Wisconsin Dells, I get that part of it, but it could be opened up a little bit more than what it is, that’s for sure. It’d be cool to see the city open up their views on signage a little bit.”
Sharkus is an unapologetic diehard fan of neon.
“I love ‘em,” he said. “I think they’re very cool. I love the ‘old school’ look of it. It’s vintage. Very nostalgic.”
At Lake Aire Restaurant, 804 W. Main St. in downtown Lake Geneva, the classic neon signage over the front entryway dates to 1950.
Retired restaurateur George Argiropoulos, who sold Lake Aire to son Demetrius in 2020, continues to dote over the restaurant’s classic green and red neon sign, as he has since 1984. It’s a calling not for the faint of heart or thin of wallet, with Argorpoulos investing $5,500-6,000 in a complete sign overhaul a decade ago.
“Maintaining a neon sign is a pain in the butt,” Argiropoulos said. “Every year I replace one or two of the transformers — and they’re not cheap. I’ve got a guy from Racine that comes to maintain it every time I need him. He specializes in old neon signs and takes care of it. It takes an experienced person.”
But the hassle is worth it, Argiropoulos noted, calling himself an “old timer” with an appreciation for the workmanship of a bygone area when things were “built to last a lifetime — or more.”
“Quite often I see people come by and take pictures of it because it is unique,” he said of the Lake Aire sign. “Everybody likes it. They like the look and the design of the old neon signs that they don’t see much of anymore. I do, too. I like to keep the uniqueness of the old town look. There aren’t many of us that keep the look of the old town anymore. People appreciate that we maintain it. We’d like to keep it as long as we can. To do a new sign like this, I don’t know what it would cost. I don’t know that they’d even do it anymore.”
A couple years ago, the sign famously caught the attention of Milwaukee-based motorcycle manufacturer Harley-Davidson, which featured the neon Lake Aire sign in its magazine advertising promoting the rollout of a new bike.
“They came at 3 a.m.,” Argiropoulos recalled. “We turned the sign on and they took a picture of the bike in front of it on Main Street.”
At 802 S. Wells St., once the old U.S. 12 alignment, the grandaddy of local neon signs hangs its shingle at The Cheese Box, where owners John and Cheri Borowiec hope to someday restore the shop’s circa-1940 roadside sign to its heydays glory.
The Cheese Box’s sign — “Sausage—Cheese—Gift Boxes” — has been dark since before the couple bought The Cheese Box from Ed Schwinn in 2013.
“I’ve looked into it a little bit with friends about firing it up again,” John said of the 82-year-old sign, a testament to the handiwork of Everbright (1927-), which installed the very first neon sign in Milwaukee in the early 1930s. “I would like to get it back to neon. Everybody tells me I might be better off going to LED, but if you’re gonna do it I think you’ve gotta go neon. At some point it would be nice to pursue it. You always have something that gets pushed in front of that. It might be a goal that I could reach here soon, maybe in the next year or so. Revisit the conversation with my friends again.”
Even in its non-operative state, Borowiec noted the brown, green and buttery yellow porcelain steel sign still catches the eyes of nostalgic neon fans.
“People take pictures of it,” he said. “It’s the nostalgia of it. They remember the neon signs being dominant, not only in this area but everywhere. A lot of people say it’d be cool to see it lit up again.”
Borowiec, who vacationed in Lake Geneva as a child in the city’s neon-festooned 1960s heyday, recalled days when then-U.S. 12 was “a mile of motels” lit in a “main drag” blaze of neon glory.
“It was a whole neon strip,” he said, noting the sign at The Cheese Box is the “lone survivor” of the strip’s halcyon days. “I remember the illumination, the glow from a distance. You knew you were getting close to ‘The Lake.’ You got excited when you’d see that glow. Driving by, you’d look at the brilliance of the signs. It was pretty.”
The memories of Lake Geneva’s neon-lit heydays, and the enduring familiar sights of the city’s retro old school neon survivors, still maintain their magic for many, myself included, as yesterday meets today under the colorful neon glow.
This advertising wall sign commissioned by Milwaukee-based Joseph Schlitz Brewing Co. along Washington Avenue is one of the many ghost signs that can be found around Racine. The sign includes the image of Schlitz's trademark globe logo.
This long-lived Downtown Racine ghost sign along Third St. between Main St. and Washington Ave. advertises Dr. Giffin's Diphtheria Cure and Preventive, a patent medicine developed and marketed in 1893 by Neenah physician Dr. L.W. Giffin (1853-1902). At the time, diphtheria, a toxic bacterial infection, was a gruesome killer with no known cause and a plethora of ineffective treatments, including a host of patent medicines "cures." Giffin practiced medicine in Neenah from 1884-1899, and on the sideline produced and marketed his patented Giffin Medicine Co. elixirs, Dr. Giffin's Dihptheria Cure and its successor, Muco-Solvent, from 1893-1902. The medicine on its 1893 debut was marketed as "a sure septic for all diseases of the throat" that could be "procured from any druggist at the trifling cost of $1.00" and "arrest the fatalities of the disease if taken in time." Giffin's 1902 obituary reported that Giffin was "widely known ... throughout the country as the discoverer and maker of a diphtheria cure." An actual cure for diphtheria, a vaccine first developed in France in 1913 and billed as "one of the seven wonders of the modern world," was not widely available until the 1920s.
Spoiler: It’s possible the Cheese Box’s neon sign could in the future be lit up again.
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This classic neon sign at Lake Aire Restaurant, 804 W. Main St. in downtown Lake Geneva, dates to 1950. A few years back, the sign served as a retro-nostalgic backdrop for a Harley-Davidson magazine advertisement promoting the roll-out of a new motorcycle.
At Lake Aire, 804 W. Main St. in downtown Lake Geneva, George Argiropoulos has overseen stewardship of the restaurant’s the classic circa-1950 neon sign since 1984. It’s a calling not for the faint of heart or thin of wallet, with Argorpoulos investing $5,500-6,000 in a complete sign overhaul a decade ago. While “maintaining a neon sign is a pain in the butt,” Argiropoulos said it’s well worth the hassle, given the sign’s popularity and his longstanding desire to “keep the uniqueness of the old town look” of downtown Lake Geneva. Said Argiropoulos of the sign, “We’d like to keep it as long as we can. To do a new sign like this, I don’t know what it would cost. I don’t know that they’d even do it anymore.”
At Bruno’s Liquors, 524 Broad St., owner Jim Sharkus is the third generation to oversee the store’s circa-1960 neon sign: “I hear from people about it all the time. People are intrigued by it. Everybody wants to stop and take a picture with it. It’s an icon. Anybody that’s been to Lake Geneva knows that sign. It’s a pretty much a landmark. It’s very cool we’ve had it in the family that long.”
The roadside sign at The Cheese Box, 802 S. Wells St., once the old U.S. Hwy. 12 alignment, was built by Milwaukee-based Everbright Sign Co. in 1940. The granddaddy of vintage neon signage in Lake Geneva at 82 years old, Cheese Box owners John and Cheri Borowiec hope to someday restore and “fire up” the old sign, which continues to attract a steady stream of nostalgic picture-takers.