Welcome!
It is my pleasure to welcome you to Barkley's Burgers, Brews and Dawgs. We're confident that you will enjoy your time here with us and that this will be your go-to place for quality food, drinks and great service on the west side of Janesville. Since we are brand new, I thought it would be helpful to share some background about the foundation of Barkley's.
It has long been my dream to run a restaurant in my home town. My wife, Denise, and i have lived our entire lives here in Janesville, we went to high school here, and for the past 15 years I've worked for the city water department while "moonlighting" at GameDay for 7 years.
When Barkley's owner, and my good friend, Greg Hughes first talked about the concept, I said I was in before he even finished sharing his vision for Barkley's. I'm here virtually every day, so please let me know if we can do anything to make your Barkley's experience better. I look forward to seeing you and your friends and family for years to come.
Al Meehan
Barkley's General Manager
Ownership Note
Barkley's prinicipal owner is Greg Hughes, a Janesville native who has remained close to his roots here, and his 3 older brothers all live within an hour or so of Janesville. Greg purchased Spirits from Jeff and Nancy Hassinger, and opened under the Barkley's name on July 2, 2015. He was born and raised in the 4th Ward, and graduated from Craig and from the University of Wisconsin. He is currently a successful executive at NBC Sports Group, and has worked in the sports television business for the balance of his almost three-decade career. Greg also has ownership in both GameDay and Bazinga here in town.
His goal is for Janesville to have quality places for people to go for lunch, unwind with a few cold ones after work, enjoy great food, and cheer on the Packers and Badgers.
With Barkley's, the unique element of bringing your dog and sitting outside with him/her (or just bringing them along) is a way for people to connect, and Greg and his wife Lisa's yellow lab is the dog you see on the logo. The philosophy of the bar is 'you can't get this somewhere else', and we hope that Janesville will embrace us on the west side for years to come.
Al Meehan
Greg Hughes
Where did the name Barkley's come from?
The name reflects the theme of the bar: dogs. Barkley is the dog butler in the sitcom Modern Family, andis also a wink/nod to NBA Hall of Famer (and friend of Greg's) Charles Barkley. Charles is aware of the bar, and thinks it's "cool", but he is not in any way affiliated with it.
Our plans include development of a dog-friendly are OUTSIDE the bar (dogs can't be allowed inside), and we're working with the city to make this happen very soon. We want to set up a system where you can regularly bring your dog, enjoy the bar, have dogs be "members" at Barkley's, and to have our walls adorned with 4x6 framed pictures of the dogs of our customers and friends. Please bring one of yours, and we'll hang it right away.
We also will emphasize having a great TV and audio experiences for whatever big sports events are on...and we have the NFL Sunday Ticket, so you can follow your fantasy teams and any other reasons you may be interested in games of out of market NFL teams. If you have a particular game that you want to watch, please tell the bartender on duty to have it put on a TV.
Our menu is new, and we of course have a Friday night fish fry that rates with the best in town. We're always open to suggestions, so please let us know your thoughts.
