Whiskey, Cigars, and Community Spirit: The Colorful Story of Thomas McGee's Sporting House

Step into the vibrant world of whiskey and cigars with us in Eastern Market's unique mobile cigar lounge, where camaraderie is not just encouraged—it's a way of life. This episode, we sit down with Erik Olson and Jet from Thomas McGee's Sporting House to uncover the heartfelt and colorful backstory behind the bar's name, revealing a family tapestry rich with history, including a brothel-owning great aunt. Eric takes us through his inspiring journey of breathing life back into a quiet building, transforming it into a bustling haven for sports enthusiasts and niche communities since 2013. With stories that blend personal passion and community spirit, you'll learn how Thomas McGee's became a beloved local hotspot offering unforgettable experiences during unconventional hours.

Whiskey lovers, this one's for you. We dive into the world of barrel picks, sharing the excitement of a recent Pendleton Whiskey event and teasing an upcoming rodeo-themed party that's sure to be a hit. Highlighting our connection with Detroit's Caribbean community, we celebrate a variety of cultural and sports events from Formula One to cricket. Regular happenings like "Smoking Vinyl" keep the venue buzzing, while Sundays are all about the Lions with DJ Janelle Hearns. We also sprinkle in some tips on betting strategies related to the Pistons and give a sneak peek at future events, including the anticipated Boxing Day blowout. Whether you're a sports fan, whiskey aficionado, or just someone looking for a lively story, there's something here for everyone.

https://linktr.ee/ManCaveHappyHour

www.ManCaveHappyHour.com

Jamie Flanagan @DJJamieDetroit

Matt Fox @fox_beazlefox

Merch www.WearingFunny.com

Chapters

• 0:01 Man Cave Happy Hour Lounge
• 8:10 Barrel Picks, Rodeo Party, Whiskey Girls

Transcript

Erik Olsen: 0:01

Did you all want a shot?

Jamie Flanagan: 0:04

I said, hey, hey, welcome to the man Cave Happy Hour. I said, hey, hey, welcome to the man Cave Happy Hour. We're going to drink a fine whiskey and smoke a really fine cigar. It is time for Happy Hour. It is the man Cave Happy Hour Whiskey, cigars, spirits, the stories that go along with it. And today, august, I'm telling you I'm Jamie Flanagan, by the way.

August Gitschlag: 0:38

Oh, I'm August.

Jamie Flanagan: 0:38

Kitschleitz, and we do undoubtedly have whiskey and cigars today. Often when we're in the studio, we can't do cigars.

August Gitschlag: 0:44

We don't do cigars and I usually don't do the cigar events anyway.

Jamie Flanagan: 0:47

We got a couple very special things happening today. We're recording a couple of episodes, yes, and we're in a magnificent cigar lounge on wheels yes, a lounge on wheels. And coming up. We're going to be talking to Kent Fowler and all about the Sticks Mobile Cigar Lounge, but we're parked outside of Thomas McKee's Eastern Market.

August Gitschlag: 1:12

One of my regular haunts. I'm down here quite often on this little block here.

Jamie Flanagan: 1:15

And once again talking about.

August Gitschlag: 1:16

Allegedly come on.

Erik Olsen: 1:18

Allegedly. Oh, I can confirm it if you need me to. Oh, yeah, but if it's got to be alleged, I can do that too.

August Gitschlag: 1:26

Everyone knows where I'm at. It's fine. I'm a social media yeah, where I'm at, all right. So that's technical difficulties of when we're doing the on-site podcast, yeah.

Jamie Flanagan: 1:35

So I can. I got my bunny ears on, I know when I'm connected, or not, but all right we're here with Eric the owner.

August Gitschlag: 1:42

Yeah, Eric Olson, yep, and the legendary Jet, front of the house, face of the place.

Jamie Flanagan: 1:47

So, august, this is your home away from home. Eastern Market yes, I'm down here.

August Gitschlag: 1:52

quite often I spend too much time and money down here.

Jamie Flanagan: 1:54

I'm going to let you drive this boat today. Wow, I've got to light a cigar. Hey, randy Walker another fellow podcaster so uh, but yeah, so I want to find out a little bit. Thomas mcgee's, you guys have been here, uh, for a while. I I, my wife and I were here and you told us a fantastic story how it's named after your two grandmothers.

August Gitschlag: 2:12

That's true two last names of the two different grandmothers, yeah uh and it just worked out nicely.

Jamie Flanagan: 2:17

that one was thomas and it seems like a first name, but it was actually a last name, and then mcgee's uh, we just thought that was the coolest thing ever, man. So yeah, we love family. We love family it is.

Erik Olsen: 2:26

There's actually three in there, so it's Thomas McGee. First off, thanks for having us and thanks for setting up and thanks to Sticks Lounge for doing this. The name comes from the grandmothers and it's Shirley Thomas and Mario McGee, so it's Thomas McGee. But the other half of the name is a sporting house and when I when I went to market, I knew that I wanted to have a sports bar but I didn't want to be some cheesy generic place. So a classic term was was a sporting house and that was sort of like a sports bar back in the day but it was a little bit more risque, kind of like a whorehouse gamble on fights and stuff like that.

Erik Olsen: 3:08

So my great Aunt Rose, great great Aunt Rose from Toledo owned a brothel on Front Street and she went to jail during the Depression. She was on the cover of the Toledo Blade. When they hooked her she had a mink and pearls on and went to jail. So the name is an homage to three Toledo Blade. When they hooked her she had a mink and pearls on and went to jail. The name is an homage to three legendary women in my family.

Jamie Flanagan: 3:29

You've been down here in Eastern Market since 2013.

Erik Olsen: 3:32

2013. All right, I was banging on a place in 2011, but I opened it in 2013.

August Gitschlag: 3:37

Okay, what made you pick the Eastern Market area? It wasn't a lot new in 2011.

Erik Olsen: 3:42

It was a place that I really, really, really loved when I new in 2011. No, it's a place that I really, really, really loved and when I first kicked the tires at doing a bar, I was going to buy a bar on the east side and the deal kind of fell apart. But my attorney was like you know, hang in there, think of something different. And I just thought about, like, where's that little bar that me and my dad used to go to? So I drove down to Eastern Market, parked in the parking lot kind of retrace the steps and the whole thing was covered up.

Erik Olsen: 4:11

This, this whole building was dormant and there was like a little four by four hole and I shined a flashlight and peeked in and I could see a bar top, uh-huh. So, um, the that's the main pub area. Yeah, the room with the stage and everything that was a. That was a fruit market, okay, but uh, so half of it was a bar that closed in 1997. So before we had casinos in detroit, yeah, me and my dad would meet here and it was a bar that closed in 1997. So before we had casinos in Detroit, me and my dad would meet here and it was called Murphy's at the time, and we'd rifle back a couple of beers and we'd drive out to Windsor and go gamble all day.

Jamie Flanagan: 4:33

Those temporary casinos for 24 years ago? Yeah, those ones, yeah, okay.

Erik Olsen: 4:39

Still got my money.

Erik Olsen: 4:42

So now you've taken this place and you've well you've become quite a I'm going to say a niche bar, but you have certain followings that just fill that place up at times when you really wouldn't expect bars to be full of people. Huh, I think that's kind of what we do, man. It's probably what we're best at is absolutely rocking a house at a time when nobody would think of going to a bar, or you know other bar owner friends always laugh at me. This is just the exact opposite, because you know, if there's no events in Eastern Market, it might be a ghost town down here, but 8 o'clock the next morning if there's an English soccer game on, we're rammed with 150 people and we drain three barrels of Guinness. Nice, yeah.

August Gitschlag: 5:21

So you are an official, aren't you? You are official Liverpool bar for Southeast Michigan.

Erik Olsen: 5:27

Yeah, we are an international sports bar. We show world sports and we have a 1300 person Liverpool official supporters club that meet at our bar and of that 1300, probably 500 are pretty active, so it gets pretty.

August Gitschlag: 5:41

I've witnessed them firsthand a couple of times being being one guy did. It was kind of tense at a moment. I did come down, knew what I was getting into. I came down for the Spurs Liverpool match. I'm a Spurs fan, I taught him hot Spurs. And a guy just kept screaming in my ear and I'm like Winston, rest for seeing whether bartenders like Winston this dude. He's like, just wait for it, it'll be okay. And then something happened. He just starts screaming in my ear. I can feel his spit in my ear.

August Gitschlag: 6:08

I'm like this is going to be real bad in a minute if he hit those again and then the half ends and the guy tasking the show is like hey, I'm really sorry about that. My name's so-and-so what just happened. He was completely switched personalities and winston's, like I told you, he was cool. He's just a little wound up and I just made a best friend all right, he's exactly what he's saying. He's like I run an apple store in summer, so come see me. I'm like okay exactly.

Jet: 6:33

You don't exist while the match is on, but during halftime they'll buy you a beer to make up.

August Gitschlag: 6:36

Oh, absolutely, absolutely and it's, it's. I've never had a bad time. And also, like when usa soccer matches, when international games are, I come down for that kind of stuff in champions league. So, um, and you also are big on the in the boxing scene, in the formula one boxing boxing's huge for us because I've been involved in boxing all my life.

Erik Olsen: 6:53

So, uh, run a couple what run a big amateur program and then, uh, we do a lot big piece of the fundraising for the detroit golden gloves every year and I manage those events. Pro fighter, that's a world champion and uh, help a lot of young detroit fighters transition to the pro game. And just we, just uh, we've done boxer reunions here, and so, uh, x fighters from all over the world I might have some of the tommy hearns in your bar once yeah, yeah, that's it.

Erik Olsen: 7:22

Man's here, yeah, milt mccrory's here. So, uh, the list goes on and on, but I'm a real boxing dark so that I could I could get pretty deep into that do you do the fights here like the, the pay-per-view? Fight. Yeah, yeah, we show most of the big pay-per-views okay, most of the big pay-per-views, and on a weekly basis we show all the fights okay, never any issues with uh knuckleheads.

August Gitschlag: 7:44

No, that's more of a ufc thing.

Erik Olsen: 7:46

Yeah that's exactly what I was hoping you were going to say, because I kind of agree with that.

August Gitschlag: 7:49

I think it's a different kind of crowd Absolutely.

Erik Olsen: 7:53

Yeah, I think UFC guys look at the TV and think they can do that, but a guy who watches Floyd Mayweather goes there's no way, I don't know I've watched some guys walk out of Rocky films.

August Gitschlag: 8:00

It's thinking that they were suddenly out of Jersey or Philly, but I've always had a great time on the patio watching sports over here. You guys have been doing your own barrel picks too, which I know is kind of the hot thing, so people are doing it all over the place. But recently you had a whiskey. Did you have a tequila before?

Erik Olsen: 8:18

or not. No, we've never done a tequila. We've had a couple offers, but I'm just a little nervous to do it because we just don't sell a lot of tequila. But we do Irish tequila.

August Gitschlag: 8:25

But we do Irish tequila.

Erik Olsen: 8:27

We should probably do it at some point Jet and I have actually talked about it. We should probably do it at some point, but whiskey's my thing, so you had a. I was here for a was it a Pendleton event recently? Yeah, got another big one coming up too.

August Gitschlag: 8:43

Oh, you got another one coming up. Yeah, it's a rodeo girl event.

Erik Olsen: 8:45

So it's going to be fun. Tell me what that is? Just a theme for a good party. The girls want to throw a party and that's what they're going to do. Pendleton Whiskey, which sponsors the rodeo, is bringing it in. It's kind of a hot thing right now.

August Gitschlag: 9:00

Are you going to add rodeo to your boxing and Formula One and English soccer?

Erik Olsen: 9:05

I'll add the rodeo girls.

Jet: 9:07

We show horse racing too, do you guys? I'll add the rodeo girls. Okay, we show horse racing too.

Erik Olsen: 9:10

Yeah, you guys do rugby and cricket, or not? We?

August Gitschlag: 9:13

do actually Formula one. I thought I caught a cricket match. Yeah, we do, yeah.

Erik Olsen: 9:18

We have a pretty close relationship with the Caribbean community in Detroit and there a lot of them are cricket fans.

August Gitschlag: 9:24

So we show their their world cup games and we show their pop-ups here in the past that you guys have done with some Caribbean food. That was really good. Yeah, it's been delicious. So, Jamie, there's a question that you're dying to ask that you ask all of our bar owner friends.

Jamie Flanagan: 9:40

Oh so no, it's like tell me about your childhood. That's the one, eric. Tell me about your childhood.

Erik Olsen: 9:48

I didn't grow up in a bar. A lot of bar owners did I don't know Kind of basic American divorce family. Where are you from, split between Detroit and the east side of Detroit and Mount Clemens.

Jamie Flanagan: 10:06

My mother and stepfather lived in Mount.

Erik Olsen: 10:08

Clemens and my father lived on the east side in the city, so we just kind of up and down 94 nonstop and then I've been in the city the whole life.

August Gitschlag: 10:17

I grew up on the east side. I'm a St Jude kid.

Erik Olsen: 10:20

I remember we had this conversation.

August Gitschlag: 10:22

That's right. What? About you, Jet? Where are you from?

Jet: 10:24

I'm from Romulus.

August Gitschlag: 10:25

So I was born in Brightmoor in Detroit.

Jet: 10:29

Yep Moved to Romulus when I was six, stayed there until I finished high school. Did my undergrad at U of M Ann Arbor. I stayed out there for about 10 years and then made my way back here and Thomas McGee's was my most recent stop and and they, she stayed and it's stuck.

Erik Olsen: 10:47

She's going to be here longer than me.

Jet: 10:49

Seriously, this is the longest that I'm a me.

Erik Olsen: 10:51

Seriously, this is the longest that I've. I'm a migrator.

Jet: 10:52

So this is the longest that I've been at an establishment and I've, you know, had my hand in multiple fields and multiple careers, and this one just kind of stuck.

August Gitschlag: 11:01

So when he said how long you been together about, you said five, six years. Six and a half, because I can't remember coming down here without you being here.

Jet: 11:14

You're the pretty face in front. That's right. I've officially been here more than half of the life of Thomas McGee.

August Gitschlag: 11:17

Yeah, yeah, yeah so, but what's the? Uh, the you do a regular. What are your regular events, your regular theme nights that you guys have down here?

Erik Olsen: 11:24

oh, that's a good one. Well, thursdays uh, thursday, a lot of cigar guys come down for the patio and we do vinyl records.

August Gitschlag: 11:30

You do it almost year-round right.

Erik Olsen: 11:31

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we do vinyl records. We call it smoking vinyl. A lot of the guys from the different cigar clubs come down Music nerds, locals, stuff like that. And that's on Thursdays Excuse me, fridays is market day, so that's kind of our thing. Saturday nights is market day. Saturday nights rotate Friday's is market day, so that's kind of our thing. Saturday night, I mean, saturday's is market day. Friday. Saturday night's, rotate Friday's. Dj Uptown plays Jamaican Dude. He does a mix of old school pop, a lot of Caribbean music, r&b, stuff like that.

Jet: 12:01

So I just rotate that Sundays are dedicated to the Lions.

August Gitschlag: 12:04

Yeah right now. I bet they are.

Erik Olsen: 12:06

Sundays are dedicated to the Lions, but we have a smoking DJ, the legendary Janelle Hearns man who used to be with the Pistons. Now she has time for me, so she does 4 o'clock on the patios every Sunday and then weather permitting, and then we slide her inside and it's a real cool, very lady-centric mix. Her track selection is fantastic.

August Gitschlag: 12:33

As much as I love the P the pistons, I have a great betting trend that I've been very successful at lately, at any time I see the pistons up by 15 or more, I immediately go in and put 10 to 25 bucks on the team they're playing against because they blow a lead like nobody's business.

Erik Olsen: 12:41

Did it again last night and I won. It's heartbreaking, but we're one game out. We're one game out. One game out baby. Three games in.

August Gitschlag: 12:53

Any charity events or anything coming up real soon what you got going on.

Erik Olsen: 12:57

The rodeo, the Whiskey Girl, the rodeo party. What's the date on that? That's Friday, november 15th. Okay, that's going to be cool. Down the road we always do our Boxing Day blowout, which is the day after Christmas, and Down the road, we always do our Boxing Day blowout, which is the day after Christmas, and it's like they play English soccer all day, so it's a big day.

August Gitschlag: 13:13

It's a big day for English soccer, yeah.

Erik Olsen: 13:15

Yeah, that's a big one. The Tyson Fury fights coming up, tyson Fury and Usyk are coming up in December and that's like a 5, 6 pm fight.

Jet: 13:22

Oh OK.

Erik Olsen: 13:23

So we'll build something around that Great.

August Gitschlag: 13:25

You guys aren't doing the Tyson and the.

Erik Olsen: 13:27

YouTube dude fight, are you? No, none of the goofball stuff.

August Gitschlag: 13:29

Okay, all right, good.

Erik Olsen: 13:32

And then just our normal thing. But we do. You know, I always forget to tell people when I've got a mic in front of you. We do have event rental space and we give you a really easy time to throw a party. We've got a list of preferred DJs that are always hot. We've got a list of preferred caterers. We can tailor and theme your party to however you want it. You've got an event coming up. Give us a look.

Jamie Flanagan: 13:59

Tell me about the whiskeys that are on the shelf. What's your favorite on the shelf? There's no way I can.

August Gitschlag: 14:08

I can't pick amongst the most. You can, no way I can. Which one do you like the most? Which children?

Jamie Flanagan: 14:12

do you love the most? What's something unique on the shelf that someone comes out here?

Erik Olsen: 14:19

We do have some unique things on the shelf. We've got the Orphan Barrel series, which is I procured that years ago and then I buried it and then I waited until everybody else is gone so I brought it back out. So it's kind of it's. It's really high-end stuff but it's really unique and every bottle and every expression is different.

Erik Olsen: 14:36

We have our current single barrel pick, which is jefferson ocean and it's a weeded version and we kind of uh, myself and jet and ronnie cash, one of our other bartenders the three of us are kind of the staple in all the barrel picks that we do. And it just seems to be a little bit better if I take the girls with me. Okay, because it just puts a lady's touch on the barrel. Women have twice as many taste buds and we tend to be real one-dimensional with what us fellas drink, whereas women can, I always say, like with a broader array of flavors and things like that. So it's cool to have a ladies' touch on the barrel because we are selling whiskey to everybody. So that's the current single barrel pick and I think I mean the cat's out of the bag. We did an Elijah Craig before and Elijah Craig wants us to do another one real bad.

Erik Olsen: 15:26

So we know we're going to do that.

August Gitschlag: 15:28

I think I drank most of that. When you guys had it, I drank a ton of it.

Erik Olsen: 15:33

And there may be like a Knob Creek in the future?

Jamie Flanagan: 15:37

All right, how deep is the bench? How long is that whiskey list?

Erik Olsen: 15:42

Inside. Yeah, we probably got about 100 up there right now.

August Gitschlag: 15:45

Okay, what do we have in our hands?

Erik Olsen: 15:48

right now Speaking of which this is one of our house shots. Man, we love our friends at Bushmills Irish Whiskey. It's one of the oldest distilleries in the world, if not the oldest. It's on the very northern tip of the island of Ireland, in the town of Bushmills. When in the world, if not the oldest, it's on the very northern tip of the island of Ireland, in the town of Bushmills. When you look across from the distillery you can actually see Scotland on a nice day. So it's very different than Jameson, because this actually tastes like whiskey. So this particular version is the Bushmills Prohibition Peaky Blinder-inspired bottle. It's 92 proof and it's all barley.

Jamie Flanagan: 16:27

Is this something unique to you, or is this something that people find? They made it as unique to us as they could.

Erik Olsen: 16:34

Every drop of this that came to Michigan for the first three months came to us, and then the rest of the state got it, so it was kind of their way of saying thank you. We can't ship a single barrel from Ireland. There's not a legal way to do that, so that's what they did for us. So you can get this anywhere. Now Go to your good liquor store and ask for Bushmills Prohibition. If you're a Peaky Blinders fan, it's got the Shelby Company Limited label right on the bottle.

Jamie Flanagan: 16:55

That's one for the bar for sure. So cheers, thanks for having us.

Erik Olsen: 17:00

Cheers, and the website ThomasMcGee'scom T-H-O-M-A-S-M-A-G-E-E-S.

Jamie Flanagan: 17:09

All right, and yeah, you got a nice calendar up there. You keep things up to date as to what's happening.

Erik Olsen: 17:13

We do, I use Facebook a lot, but it mirrors right under our website and there's a sports schedule on there and you can keep abreast of what's going on down here and in eastern american as well so, jet what?

Jamie Flanagan: 17:24

what do you? What do you need to tell us about thomas mcgugh's that we don't know? That you don't know yeah, I don't know a lot, so I'm pretty dumb I don't know a lot.

Jet: 17:33

He's from like troy's way up is so is that we are a hidden gem of of cocktails oh, cocktails, all right very much pride ourselves on the cocktails both that we make from the the barrel picks. Um, we tend to do old fashions and classic cocktails as well. We have a killer bloody mary. Um, our irish coffee is the best that competes with anything that anybody's had around the world and it's not just me saying it, it's because people tell us so um, come down for the cocktails, get some.

Jamie Flanagan: 18:03

That's a perfect example of why jet's here. That's it. I drink shots all day. It's not just me saying it, it's because people tell us. So Come down for the cocktails, get some whiskey.

Erik Olsen: 18:05

That's a perfect example of why Jet's here. That's it.

August Gitschlag: 18:07

I drink shots all day and I don't drink cocktails, that's why we needed you.

Erik Olsen: 18:12

Cocktails are fantastic and I forget to say that.

August Gitschlag: 18:14

That's why he says when he travels and does his drinking, he has a woman with him.

Jamie Flanagan: 18:18

There you go. That is it Awesome. Well, so you guys, thanks for coming into the man cave.

Erik Olsen: 18:24

Actually sticks mobile lounge yes, the man cave looks a lot better today than it normally does it absolutely absolutely does.

August Gitschlag: 18:36

We'll have you in the studio one time. We have the studio in South. It does have a full bar in it. So it's kind of a. It's kind of a. It's a different vibe, but you just can't have a, just can't have your sticks there.

Jamie Flanagan: 18:45

No smoky smoky in the studio.

August Gitschlag: 18:47

There's no secret we're doing another podcast.

Erik Olsen: 18:50

We'll pull the sticks. Lounge up outside, we'll tailgate your podcast, yeah.

August Gitschlag: 18:55

So we're going to have them on the next podcast. It's going to be recorded, but you were kind enough. We worked this out. Because you have a smoke friendly patio establishment with your smoke vinyl night, we figured we'd pull these guys up. Everyone gets to cross, pollinate and meet each other, and you guys can hopefully do some things in the future.

Erik Olsen: 19:11

Yeah man, this was cool man. As soon as August said it, I couldn't say yes, fast enough. It's a great idea.

Jamie Flanagan: 19:17

Thanks for having us.

August Gitschlag: 19:17

Thanks everybody, Cheers.

Jamie Flanagan: 19:18

All right, cheers.

August Gitschlag: 19:20

All right, Sláinte. So this is the part where we say, oh yeah, like and subscribe.

Jamie Flanagan: 19:24

Do all the podcast things in all the podcast places.

August Gitschlag: 19:27

In all the podcast places.

Jamie Flanagan: 19:28

That's it All right. We'll see you next time.