Brother’s Three Lounge on Magazine Street ‘closed until further notice’ after owner’s death

Nicholas Reimann, Uptown Messenger

Brothers Three Lounge, long known as the Magazine Street dive bar with low ceilings and a mustard-yellow exterior, is closed until further notice following the death of its owner.

This weekend, a sign was placed in the door simply saying, “closed until further notice” and below those words “sorry.” A padlock made sure the door was kept shut.

The bar hasn’t served drinks since Saturday, when its owner John Silvy Jr. died at the age of 85, according to the online obituary service Dignity Memorial.

On Wednesday, flowers and a handwritten note were left at the bar entrance.

“We will miss you Mr. Johnnie R.I.P.,” the note read, followed up with “B 3 4 ever” and “Love, Michelle.”

In an era where drinking on Magazine Street is becoming more synonymous with heading to bright, modern spaces to savor specialty cocktails, Brothers Three — also written out as Brothers III — kept things simple, and anything but pretentious.

The 24-hour bar billed itself as “cozy,” with a hodgepodge of surfaces making up the bar itself, an old TV right behind next to a plain white refrigerator, and a pool table toward the back.

It was also known as one of the cheapest places to get a drink Uptown. And for many, that kept the party going well into the early hours.

“7am Friday morning. More people at the bar than my gym across the street,” Marcy Nathan said in a March 2016 Facebook post.

Social media has also been the place for many of the bar’s regulars to grieve over the past few days — for both their beloved establishment and its owner, with most seeming to think Silvy’s death means the end for Brothers Three.

“Never have I ever seen a place or room that was such a dirty, romantic, and controlled accident,” Matthew Adam Welch said Sunday on Facebook. “Or to have an emotional attachment to a dive bar. And it was 24/7 haha. What a weird thing, to be my bottomless well of inspiration, and an art project.”

Another comment by Jimmy Black read: “The end of an era? We shall see…… all my respect and love to all that spent most of their lives enabling us. I only know two decades… let’s hope there’s many more years to come.”

Those posts came on the unofficial Brothers III Lounge Facebook page — unofficial because Brothers Three didn’t have any sort of online presence — website, social media or otherwise.

Funeral arrangements for Silvy were not immediately available.