The neighborhood bar as an institution — and the Death March that walks it

c. 1933 — 2026

The institution: Repeal left Mishawaka with a drinking landscape different from its sister city's, and a visiting blues writer measured it in 2010: Mishawaka, Dave Hoekstra wrote in the Chicago Sun-Times, held "still about 20 family-owned bars within a 15-minute walking distance of the Midway" — a density he compared to Milwaukee's. The bars were the West End's and the north side's second living rooms: small, family-held, license-poor and cash-steady, most of them in the same brick storefronts the soft-drink stands of 1921 had occupied. Their individual courses mostly escape the digitized record — no run of the Enterprise or the Tribune's Mishawaka pages for the postwar decades stands open to this section — and this section prints them at the size the record gives: one roster, twice documented, and the annual event that made the roster famous.

The Death March, 2004: The roster survives because a Mishawaka man named Bob Wegner organized a pub crawl through the neighborhood bars and the South Bend Tribune covered it in 2004. The crawl's bars, as the Tribune listed them: Ruby's, Sunny's Korean Garden Patio, Roxie's Manhattan, Squad's 2nd Precinct, the Wooden Shoe, Jerry's Pub, the Midway Tavern, My Friend's Place, and the Phoenix Bar & Grill; the Wander Inn, on the route, was "filled to standing-room-only capacity by 7:30 p.m." Wegner printed T-shirts and bar signs but otherwise spread the word by mouth; hundreds turned out; and his stated purpose, in the Tribune's rendering, was to spark what he saw as a dying interest in Mishawaka's neighborhood bars. The name — the Death March — is the founder's joke on the walk and the institution both: the bars were dying, and the march was the proof they were not dead.

The march continues: The Tribune's follow-up of 2008 — "'Death March' draws crowds — concerns" — records the event grown to a city question: safety concerns voiced, police and city officials in the frame (Ken Witkowski is quoted on keeping it an event people "can come and have a good time but still be safe"), and Bobby Wegner's defense of the institution he was marching for: "A lot of these bars have been around since Prohibition. They're part of Mishawaka's history." (The claim carried its strength on the route itself: the Midway, on the crawl from its first documented year, had opened under Prohibition in 1924.) The march was still being walked in 2026: the Tribune's Phoenix feature of 2 November 2026 records that a good chunk of the 500 people who participated that year ended their night at the Phoenix. Of the 2004 roster's rooms, the Midway and the Phoenix carry full entries in this section; the Wooden Shoe, at 822 West Sixth Street, stands in the current directory record as the West End's surviving Belgian-named bar — the wooden shoe is the old country's emblem, worn as a bar sign — attested from the 2004 roster to November 2026; Roxie's Manhattan stands in the current listings on West Seventh Street. The courses of Ruby's, Jerry's Pub, Squad's 2nd Precinct, Sunny's Korean Garden Patio, My Friend's Place and the Wander Inn beyond the crawl record were not reached; they are named here at roster size, with the Tribune and Enterprise runs named as the settling record for any future pass.

Sources:

1. South Bend Tribune (2004), the Death March account (ProQuest/library record): founder Bob Wegner; the roster as printed in the entry; the Wander Inn at standing-room-only by 7:30 p.m.; T-shirts and bar signs, otherwise word of mouth; Wegner's purpose against "a dying interest in Mishawaka's neighborhood bars." South Bend Tribune (2008), "'Death March' draws crowds — concerns": Bobby Wegner's "since Prohibition" line and Ken Witkowski on safety — the two accounts' founder name-forms (Bob / Bobby) printed as each carries them.
2. Dave Hoekstra, Chicago Sun-Times (November 2010) — "about 20 family-owned bars within a 15-minute walking distance of the Midway." South Bend Tribune (2 November 2026), the Phoenix feature — some 500 in the 2026 march, ending at the Phoenix. Current directory listings (November 2026) — the Wooden Shoe, 822 W. 6th St.; Roxie's Manhattan, W. 7th St., operating; the balance of the roster's present state not established, and not claimed.