A big blow to vendors, but they trust decision.
Scott and Melissa Dooley and their team at Knucklehead Pub & Grub had already begun preparing their signature “lug nuts” — a tater tot and jalapeno pepper on a stick, wrapped in bacon and deep fried — which they sell by the thousands each year at the Wisconsin State Fair.
This year, though, the “lug nuts,” along with the live music and the tens of thousands of beers they typically serve during the fair’s 11-day run won’t happen.
The Wisconsin State Fair was canceled Thursday, the latest cruel blow dealt by COVID-19 to hospitality businesses in the state.
“It’s a huge financial loss,” said Scott Dooley.”It’s a big blow to us.”
The “lug nuts” have to be made in advance because the rate at which they sell during the fair “is just ridiculous,” Scott Dooley said.
So are the beer sales.
“If I remember correctly, we sold 15,000 cans of beer” last year at the fair. That doesn’t include the beer that is sold on tap.
He and his wife, Melissa, (whom he refers to as “the brains of the operation”) bought the building at Central
Avenue and Center Street on the fairgrounds several years ago and this would have been the bar’s fifth year at the fair.
He described the relationship with the fair as “kind of like a trailer park. We own the bricks and mortar but we don’t own the land. It’s a partnership with the state,” Scott Dooley said.
“They take care of all the marketing and advertising and we run a fun, clean place. It’s a good partnership,” he said.
“We have two payments left on the building,” he added.
But COVID-19 has proven to be wildly contagious among folks who come in close contact with each other. On a warm weekend day and/or evening, crowds at the fair can sometimes be shoulder to shoulder. The fair routinely draws 1 million visitors.
“You don’t want people to get sick,” Scott Dooley said. “I trust their decision” to cancel the fair.
Slim McGinn, owner of a Brookfield Irish pub that shares his name, said his three locations at State Fair generate more sales in 11 days than his restaurant does in half a year.
“It’s a nice amount of income in a short amount of time,” McGinn said.
McGinn wasn’t surprised by the decision to cancel.
“I don’t think they could have put on the quality of fair that we’re used to.”
Between a two-month closure from
Wisconsin’s stay-at-home order and now the State Fair cancellation, he doesn’t think he’ll have a profitable year.
“The real problem is I have a lot of kids that depend on summer work and teachers who come by and help out every day who won’t have the income,” McGinn said. “It’s not only affecting me, it’s affecting the whole community.”
The fair decision left Steve Sazama, a fair fixture for decades, in tears Thursday.
“It’s just such a great family,” Sazama said of the fair.
“Everybody just loves the fair. People are so friendly. Fairgoers get there at 10 o’clock in the morning and they leave at 11 o’clock at night.”
The pandemic already has dealt a major blow to Sazama’s catering business this summer, because many events have been called off.
Saz’s Hospitality Group lost a gig for a Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co. party at Summerfest, which would have served 11,000 to 12,000 people; a party for the Democratic National Convention, which would’ve served another 10,000 people; a party at the State Fair for 5,000 people; and the summer’s food and beverage catering at the Marcus Performing Arts Center.
The vendors’ losses, Sazama said, will reverberate across the state because Sazama tries to source most of his ingredients locally.
“My pork is bought in Iowa, but it’s made in Green Bay, Wisconsin,” he said. “The number of people that impacts you just can’t imagine. They always tell everybody it’s the best 11 days of the year.”
The decision to cancel was crushing news to West Allis-based Freese’s Candy Shoppe owner Wendy Matel.
Matel has not only now lost Freese’s business at the fair, but the company also owns Heavenly Roasted Nuts, a summer staple at both the fair and Miller Park.
“My candy store in the summer months, it’s not extremely busy,” Matel said. “The fair and Brewers games kind of complemented each other. To not have either of those, it’s very impactful on our business.
“It’s great exposure for us. We’ve been here 92 years and people go to the fair, realize you’re right there in West Allis and then come back. It’s tough.”
Like Freese’s, Watertown-based Emil’s Pizza uses the fair to market its product to local customers.
“You take an 80-mile radius and that’s our core area, so for us to get into the Milwaukee market and demo our pizzas there, it’s a great thing,” said the company’s marketing director Dick Thompson.
Thompson estimates they sell around 20,000 slices over the 11 days at the fair.
The cancellation also hurts traveling vendors like River Falls-based Island Noodles.
“Everything’s canceled into August that we know of and usually go to,” owner Brad Jensen said.
Island Noodles typically is a year-round, full-time business, traveling to different locations in Minnesota, Texas and Wisconsin. But the latest cancellation has Brad and co-owner Monica Jensen scrambling.
“We haven’t worked since February and we don’t really qualify for much assistance or anything because we’re business owners,” Brad said. “We’re sort of waiting to see ... and it’s not promising.”
Lagniappe Brasserie, a fine-dining restaurant in New Berlin, usually receives nearly three months’ worth of revenue from the fair.
“We’re a winter restaurant for the most part,” owner Andy Tenaglia said. “That’s when our business picks up. The State Fair, though, is where our business explodes and we do very well.”
The cancellation of the fair is one reason why Brasserie is expanding its seating by building a deck with hopes of fitting more customers in the restaurant while still distancing.
“Now we have to think of a way to get our summer business up,” Tenaglia said.