Every week on Urban Spelunking, Radio Milwaukee’s Nate Imig and OnMilwaukee’s Bobby Tanzilo dig into the buildings and architectural features that help retain the city’s sense of history while it builds for the future.
It’s an iconic Milwaukee-area pizzeria that, if you have visited, you’ll likely never forget. This week on Urban Spelunking, we visit Organ Piper Pizza, a Greenfield institution since 1976.
The dining experience is like none other in Wisconsin, combining live organ music set to a light show, with circus-esque décor, long community tables, stained-glass light fixtures and plenty of old-school charm. Even the organ console itself is historic; it was brought over from Bay View’s Avalon Theater and retrofitted with custom pipes to fit inside the restaurant.
In this episode, Bobby and I go into the rarely opened pipe room to see how the organ works, plus we head into the kitchen with owner Derek Paikowski to learn the secrets of the Organ Piper’s longevity.
Subscribe to Urban Spelunking for new episodes every Thursday from Radio Milwaukee and OnMilwaukee, and be sure to visit OnMilwaukee for more history and photos from our visit.
