With the recent purchase of the Bucyrus Club & Event Center building and a second-generation succession plan in motion, South Milwaukee-based Skyline Catering has its sights set on the future.
The owners of Skyline Catering purchased the property at 1919 12th Ave. from the City of South Milwaukee for $680,000, according to co-owner Ernie Wunsch. The company has operated an event venue and restaurant inside the 27,000-square-foot building since 2021, following a $5 million renovation of what was once a factory and later a club for employees of Bucyrus International.
Skyline’s lease agreement included exclusive rights to buy the building at the end of its eight-year term, but thanks to the business’ growth coming out of the pandemic and the culture it’s established at the venue, the opportunity came along three years earlier than expected, said Wunsch. He founded Skyline in 1997 and now owns the company with his wife, Kathy Wunsch, and their daughter, Elyse Wunsch, who has worked in the family business since 2014 and is now in line to take over majority ownership in the next few years.
Between its off-site catering operation and bookings at the Bucyrus Club, Skyline Catering and its 60-person team does more than 1,500 events annually, serving about 400 to 500 different clients, said Ernie Wunsch, including weddings, funerals, corporate functions and other gatherings.
Over the past five years, the Bucyrus Club has hosted an average 175 events annually. The venue features the 220-capacity Grand Ballroom, the 150-capacity 1893 Ballroom and the Founder’s Room restaurant, open weekdays for breakfast and lunch and available to book for events up to 80 people. The venue hosts about 40 weddings per year, with a limit of one per weekend.
The building’s second floor houses the Bucyrus Museum, honoring the history of the heavy mining equipment manufacturer that operated out of the 76-acre headquarters campus for more than 120 years. Bucyrus was acquired by Caterpillar in 2011. Portions of the campus have been sold and redeveloped in recent years.
The city purchased the Bucyrus Club building in 2020 for $560,000, according to state records. A $1.5 million donation from the Bucyrus Foundation and a $250,000 grant from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. helped fund the purchase and redevelopment project.
Skyline Catering invested $1.2 million in the project and then borrowed another $500,000. So, when the event venue opened in July 2021, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Skyline was in debt and “a little bit nervous” about the state of the events industry and whether business would return to normal levels, said Wunsch. Business did return and the wave of events that were postponed during 2020 and 2021 provided an extra boost from 2022 to 2025. Bookings have slowed a bit in 2026 and the Milwaukee market has become more saturated with new event venues that have opened in the past couple year.
“We see a downturn this year, but our eggs are not all in one basket,” he said. “…it’s been a little bit of a roller coaster ride, but a very positive one. The future looks positive, the bookings in the future look positive.”
He said the Bucyrus Club stands out from other venues in the area with its large-scale capacity — the entire building, including the second-floor museum, can host up to 400 people — as well as its reasonably priced rental rates, free parking and a culture of treating customers as “part of the family.”
Elyse Wunsch, who has gradually been earning equity in Skyline as she’s worked her way through all areas of the business from dishwashing to office admin to personnel management, will assume majority ownership when Ernie turns 69 in roughly four years.
As the father-daughter duo prepares for the official hand off, Ernie said he feels secure in knowing that Skyline will be “a main player in the community of South Milwaukee for decades.”
“We are very deeply entrenched in the community and community service and helping out and being a catalyst for future growth in this community,” he said. “South Milwaukee has been a slow go for business growth and so we feel that we are on that track to be a part of it and to be thriving in our little downtown community once again, in my lifetime for sure, and definitely Elyse’s.”
Credit: Skyline Catering
Credit: Skyline Catering
