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The C'est La Vie was founded and operated for many years by Clarence Germershausen, known to most in the community as "John Clayton". The bar's heyday was in the 1980's, when it was relatively popular and at the hub of an area of several gay bars (for many years it was one of 4 bars in a 1 block area: also including Gary's/ Circus/ Club 219 and BallGame, both just to the north, and The Phoenix just to the south). The bar had an active dance floor, good music, and a party atmosphere, with occasional shows.

Throughtout, the bar was also known as a pickup place for young boys being sought by older men; and John's own prediliction of hiring the cutest and youngest men he could find certainly didn't detract from that reputation! The upstairs of the bar was also available for lodging, and many the young man saw his start by talking a job at C'est la Vie and living immediately above the bar.

The August 1976 issue of the local "GLIB Guide" describes the business as follows: "Mixed traffic. Pool table, dancing, loud talk. Busy bar block."

The 1980's also saw the bar's owner (Clarenece aka John Clayton) become something of a gay mogul in the city: he leased a building just to the south of the bar to both the Cream City Foundation as a community center space, and to the In Step newspaper. Within a few years however, both of those businesses moved out, partly because of the poor condition of that building.

In the 1990's the bar went into something of a decline, mostly due to the neighborhood. The Club 219, which for a while was THE largest and most popular gay dance club in Milwaukee, was eclipsed by La Cage; and the bar to the south began to go through several owenership changes as well. The neighborhood also became gentrified, with condos and art galleries moving into the area; these detracted from the closed "gay neighborhood" feeling, and also greatly restricted availability of parking. To keep up, the bar became less of a mainstream bar and became a speciality bar: its shows were either drag shows or young men (almost boy) strippers.

In September 2005, after a short but serious illness, Clarence passed away. Shortly before his death, he had passed on management of the bar to Marty, who pledged to keep the business going for at least another year. But the Club 219 had recently closed, and C'est la Vie was struggling; there were few customers, with about the only regulars being a few young gay black men who continued to put on occasional stripper shows. But the bar began to be closed at unusual times and days.

On April 1, 2006, Marty made the bar "no smoking" the ads announcing the change were greeting by many as "probably a joke" given the date- April 1st (April Fool's Day). But Marty was serious, and the bar continued to operate as non-smoking.

There were rumors throughout 2007 that the bar might soon close, but it was not until April 2008 that rumors began to be more credible. During the last 2 weeks of April 2008, flyers and ads began to appear announcing the last show at the club, and it became known that Saturday, May 3, 2008 would be the last night the C'est La Vie was to be open.