Rustic-modern event center to open soon in East Dubuque

EAST DUBUQUE, Ill. — A new event venue is close to wrapping construction in East Dubuque, with plans to open in July.

Culbie’s Event Center, 90 Sinsinawa Ave., will be available to host weddings, concerts, corporate events, graduations and more, all tailored to demand with assistance from Stacy Raap, vice president of event management.

The site will feature a 6,000-square-foot ballroom, a 3,500-square-foot heated patio/beer garden area and a 2,500-square-foot bar servicing the ballroom and patio.

The bar portion of Culbie’s will maintain its own hours outside of planned events. It will be open 6:30 a.m. to midnight Monday through Thursday, 6:30 a.m. to 2 a.m. Friday and Saturday and from 8 a.m. to midnight Sunday.

The event center has a bar manager, and officials will hire bartenders and a banquet crew this month. The center doesn’t include a kitchen and largely will rely on its catering partners for food offerings.

Raap herself adds special expertise to Culbie’s as the organizer of the Dubuque Bridal Expo for the past five years and a longtime event planner and marketing coordinator.

“We won’t have a lot of staff,” Raap said. “(But) I come with the package when you book. … I have a lot of partnerships with local vendors like DJs, photographers and videographers, caterers, florists and bakers. I’ve done this here for such a long time that I really have those relationships and I can provide a consultation to all of our clients.”

Raap says the aesthetic Culbie’s is going for is “rustic farm house and simple modern.”

“(When you walk in), you’re going to notice the cedar wood,” she said. “The rustic element will be the black and a lot of the gold accents — overall very much a simple modern farm house.”

Although construction on the site hasn’t concluded yet, events have been booked several months into the future.

“I’ve been with Culbie’s since February, and we already have quite a few weddings booked,” Raap said. “August is already completely booked out (except) a couple (of) Sundays. We’ll do dinner and a show once a month. The first one will be Friday, July 25, with Nathan ‘Tricky’ Allen, a magician and comedian. People will be able to buy tickets to attend the event.”

Culbie’s was envisioned by founding partners with strong local roots, including Mike Meyer; owner of neighboring sports bar The OtherSide; Toby Culbertson, co-owner of T&T Iron & Metals; and Todd Colin, longtime East Dubuque resident and chief integration officer at Redwood Logistics.

East Dubuque City Manager Bob Seitz said Culbie’s joins a rising trend of revitalization in the city’s downtown area.

“We hadn’t had a building constructed on the main drag here in 15 years,” Seitz said. “Now we’ve got essentially three — two restorations (and) the construction of the Culbie’s center, plus now a private park being put in by (Bridge City Collective Dispensary). … That’s really exciting — when people come to a wedding, what they do between that and the reception is usually check out local businesses.”

Officials are doing what they can to lean into the spree of development, which also includes the city’s plan to restore East Dubuque’s original fire station.

“We’ve got a facade redevelopment program where we pay half the cost of anything that’s visible from the street,” Seitz said. “We just approved a bar downtown for one of those. … We’ve got a concrete program where if businesses replace their sidewalk, we’ll pay for the material and they just have to pay for the labor. … You’re talking about, really probably half the downtown being redone as we speak.”

More information about Culbie’s is available at culbieseventcenter.com.