It’s an all too familiar situation. The patriarch of a family business dies and the children of the founder are left to decide – or in many cases fight over – what happens next.
That scenario has been playing out behind the scenes recently at longtime downtown Milwaukee nightclub Victor’s. In late March, it was reported that the business – a favorite of locals for its unfussy vibe, lively atmosphere, dancing and strong cocktails – had been listed for sale.
Victor Jones, who founded the nightclub at 1230 N. Van Buren St. in the mid-1960s, died in 2021 at the age of 91, leaving sole ownership of the business to his wife, Mary Ann Jones, who is 92.
Selling the bar after six decades of family ownership – a decision Mary Ann made under the guidance of another family member – is understandable considering her age and the difficulties the business has faced in the wake of the founder’s death, but it’s a move not all of her seven adult children agree with.
Listed for sale at $1.9 million, the property and business are under contract to be purchased for an undisclosed amount as of late May, said Vic Jones, who has operated the establishment for the past 25 years as the youngest son of Victor Jones.
Fred Williams, who is the husband of Vic’s eldest sister, Karen Williams, and the trustee of Mary Ann’s estate, confirmed that the business and property are under contract to be sold but would not disclose the purchase price or the length of the contract.
No succession plan
Many of the Jones siblings have been involved in the bar’s day-to-day operations for periods of time over the years. Vic, now 68, started working at the bar at the age of 8 or 9, he said.
Today, only Vic and his three brothers work at the business. They had put together a proposal to purchase the business and building themselves, but negotiations ultimately fell through, he said.
Vic’s three sisters, who made much of the food for the restaurant, retired last spring, putting the Victor’s kitchen out of commission. Now, they want to sell.
A main reason for the current circumstances, Vic said, is that there was not a succession plan in place at the time of his father’s death.
“Victor never thought he was going to die, so he didn’t set this thing up,” Jones said. “I did have papers drawn up like 10 years ago, but he didn’t like the way it was stated. He thought, ‘If I sign something, then I get older,
I lose power and I’ll be in an old folks’ home and other people would be running it.’ That’s the kind of person he was.”
Victor might have let his lawyer help set up a transition plan, Vic noted, but that lawyer died before Victor.
“He wouldn’t really listen to anybody else,” Vic said.
Cautionary tale
The situation the Jones family finds itself in, although typical, is a cautionary tale, says Dave Borst, a longtime family business consultant.
He said if Victor’s was intended to survive beyond its founder’s death, it should have really been set up as a family business from the get-go. And the onus to create that structure was on the business’s founder, the late Victor Jones.
“A family business is one that is intentionally structured so that the family has it, and it gets passed on from generation to generation,” Borst said. “The fact that you had family members working in the business and that it was passed down one time does not necessarily make a family business per se.”
When a business like Victor’s – one founded and owned by the head of a family but run by their children – isn’t specifically structured as a family business, things start to “go haywire,” said Borst.
When counseling family businesses, Borst frequently speaks about intentionality.
“You need to be intentional about passing a business along to the next generation,” he said. “We have to have the forethought and the gumption to understand that we’re not going to live forever,” Borst said. “And it’s perfectly okay for a founder to say: ‘You know what? I don’t want to pass it along to the next generation. I want it to be done.’”
Unfortunately for the Jones family, Victor never shared those intentions.
“My dad was a brilliant guy, but he was afraid that he wouldn’t be in charge anymore if we made a transition plan,” said Vic. “I kind of think that he thought he was going tell us what we should do in the last 10 minutes before his death, but there was no last meeting.”
