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Marquette Wire

The student news site of Marquette University

Marquette Wire

The student news site of Marquette University

Marquette Wire

There’s nothing fake about Caffrey’s bouncer

Fifteen minutes before his set at Comedy Café, Nick Vanden Heuvel scraps together Caffrey’s Pub receipts to organize his stand-up comedy routine. He has thrown up at least three times from nerves but knows that supportive friends are in the audience waiting to cheer him on. With the announcement of his name, pronounced ‘Vanden-hayvel,’ he hops on stage, grabs the microphone and for the next five minutes — rid of all stage fright — feels fully alive.

There is much more to Caffrey's intimidating bouncer Nick Vanden Heuvel then meets the eye. Photo by Elise Krivit/[email protected].

The 24-year-old Wauwatosa native is mostly known as “bouncer Nick” at Caffrey’s Pub, 717 N. 16th St., the campus bar he has worked at since he was 19. His beard, Brewers hat and blue-eyed look is almost expected at the front of the bar, where he sits next to the i-Checked software and security camera. He passes the time sipping Rumple Minze and water on the rocks in a clear plastic cup (one that’s usually reserved for Monday night’s “Big Ass Beers”).

But “bouncer Nick” is far from the mean face he puts on for underage students trying to fool him with a fake ID. He is an energetic, unpredictable, good ol’ Wisconsin boy (as described by his Caffrey’s family) who has a heart for helping those in need. Thanks to his close-knit biological family, he has a strong moral character and a knack for making people happy. How else do you explain his singing “My Heart Will Go On” with fellow bartender Mikey Daignault at last-call?

“Making people smile is my biggest high,” Vanden Heuvel said. “I’m only as happy as the saddest person in the room.”

Two minutes into his stand-up routine, the saddest person in the room would be laughing hysterically at his spot-on Smeagol impression of a city bus driver.

Vanden Heuvel started doing comedy about three years ago. He performs every Saturday with “Bye Bye Liver,” the Milwaukee drinking play, at ComedySportz, 420 S. 1st St., in addition to his monthly gigs at Comedy Café, 615 E. Brady St. Soon he’ll finish The Second City’s 20-week improvisation and acting program in Chicago, and he’s considering applying for their conservatory.

As a sixth-grader, Vanden Heuvel moved from Wauwatosa to Erin, Wis. There he discovered his passion for entertaining people while participating in “solo humorous acting” forensics in middle school.

“That’s when I started to figure it out that being funny was a big goal of mine — to be in the spotlight, to entertain,” he said.

But he wouldn’t have to work too hard at it. Being funny has always come naturally to Vanden Heuvel, who grew up in a family where a sense of humor was a common trait.

“He’s like a kid stuck in a man’s body,” Brendan ‘Benny’ McCann, a senior in the College of Education, said of his best friend. “He runs life as a mature guy but has a childlike spirit.”

Maybe that’s why Vanden Heuvel was able to quote “Space Jam” word-for-word at McCann’s house after work at four o’clock in the morning. “Whenever he’s here (at Caffrey’s) and he’s not checking IDs, he’s dancing with people or making funny jokes,” McCann said.

“Build Me Up Buttercup” by The Foundations is the song that can really make him wiggle, said McCann, or anything Motown or by Marvin Gaye or Pretty Ricky.

“I am constantly a source of entertainment,” Vanden Heuvel said.

And for a man whose biggest fear is being average, it’s easy to understand why.

“If you’re not laughing, you’re not living,” Vanden Heuvel said.

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