Entrepreneurs Breathe New Life into “Dead Zone”

In January I wrote about Sister Bay’s increasingly sparse winter scene in “Dead Zone: Sister Bay business climate goes cold.”

Just four months later a trio of new restaurants are opening with hopes of breathing new life into Sister Bay and Northern Door. These entrepreneurs – a Sister Bay restaurant family, a native son returning home, and a pair of friends returning to their restaurant roots – have found opportunity where some saw cause for concern.

CHOP, the Wuolletts

Jody Wuollett has spent his life in the restaurant scene, getting his feet wet at the Florian when he was 14, working in the corporate restaurant world, then returning to Door County, where he spent the last nine seasons at the Mission Grille in Sister Bay.

Last fall he and his wife Patsy decided that if they were going to stay in Door County, “we have to be working toward our future, not somebody else’s.”

In January they took the plunge into their own restaurant, buying the former Pasta Vino property in the back of the Country Walk Shops, where they opened CHOP, a steak and seafood restaurant, in April.

“The rest of my family had worked at the Mission the last three years, and we realized that we could be that close and get along well enough to work together,” Wuollett says. “We had that, and when we put the plan together, the economics just made sense for us.”

With CHOP, Wuollett says they’re carving out a niche not served in Northern Door since the early 1980s, serving several styles of steak cut to order and a wide selection of seafood.

“That used to be common, but it has really disappeared over the years,” Wuollett says. “I always wanted a chop-house type place, because people are always willing to pay for a good steak and good seafood.”

The menu is served out of a 150-square-foot kitchen, run by son Ryan Lapolla. Wuollett credits the Door County Economic Development Corporation for helping him get a loan for the specially designed kitchen equipment he needed to make his plan work in such a tight space. That left more room for a dining room with a bit of an urban feel, where CHOP surprisingly fits 36 seats, plus 14 more on the patio.

What gave the Wuolletts the courage to take the restaurant risk?

“This is my home, my community, and my livelihood,” Wuollett says. “We spent the last 10 years listening to diners in Door County, so we know what they’re missing and what they like. But it’s also a small place. We can heat it with our equipment in the winter, and it’s small enough that we can run it on a small staff in the off-season.”

Jody and Patsy, along with his mother Carol Pinkalla and children Ryan, Tori, and Ethan, plan to keep the restaurant open all year.

Grasse’s Grill, James and Jessica Grasse

The Grasse name is familiar to many in Northern Door County. James graduated from Gibraltar High School in 1995. For several years he and wife Jessica have been scheming to get back to the peninsula, and this year they finally found the chance they were looking for with the former DC Deli property in downtown Sister Bay.

“We definitely want to make Door County our home,” Jessica says. “We can’t wait to have our kids [James, 7 and Charlotte, 5] in school here and be close to family.”

The restaurant will be a reflection of the family, with recipes from Jessica’s and James’ mothers and produce from their gardens.

“We’re trying to feed people the same food we feed our own family,” Grasse says. “My mom, my sister – we’ve eaten a lot of stuff out of our gardens our entire life. We look at that as real food.”

Grasse takes pride in sourcing so close to home.

“It just tastes better and you know where it came from,” he says of buying local. “It’s fun to be able to tell people that too. My dad’s going to be growing red potatoes. I like the idea of being able to tell people that my dad grew those, brought them here this morning.”

Grasse went to culinary school at Madison Area Technical College and was the Chef at Otto’s, an upscale restaurant and bar in Madison. He has worked for Sysco Food Service for the last seven years. Jessica is a nurse and yoga instructor in Madison but will soon join the restaurant world, bringing her healthy habits into the fold.

“We’ll have a lot of vegetarian items on the menu,” she says.

The Grasses plan to open in mid-to-late May.

The Wickman House, Joe Fahrenkrug and Mike Holmes

Mike Holmes and Joe Fahrenkrug worked summers at T. Ashwell’s in Ellison Bay in their college days from 1999 – 2001, so when the property came on the market last year the longtime friends immediately started scrambling resources to buy it – even though the two lived several states apart.

Fahrenkrug lived in Madison, where his wife is a teacher and he worked as a web developer, while Holmes had been living in Brooklyn, New York working in the restaurant industry for 10 years. Door County drew the 32-year-olds back.

“We’ve always liked it here, and Mike has always wanted to open a restaurant,” Fahrenkrug says. “We saw a niche to be a younger sort of place for Door County, and now the timing is just right for us.”

Fahrenkrug says they see things coming around and people spending more money in the larger economy, but for the Wickman House, it’s all about doing things right.

“From our marketing to our kitchen, if that’s all done right, people will come through the door,” he says.

Unfortunately the liquor license once held by T. Ashwell’s lapsed, and the new owners were unable to secure one for this season. Beer and wine will have to suffice for now, but down the road they hope to introduce craft cocktails and eventually re-open the upstairs lodging, not used since the property’s bed and breakfast days.

“Our focus in year one, however, is the restaurant,” Fahrenkrug says. “We plan to do farm-to-table, but make it familiar and un-intimidating.”

Mike Cheslock, formerly of the Whistling Swan, has signed up as the executive chef, where he’ll create in an atmosphere much different than T. Ashwell’s.

“We’re going with a completely different look and feel,” Fahrenkrug says. “The dining room will be themed in black and white with clean lines. Modern, but with nods back to the 1920-ish style when it was the Ellison Bay Lodge.”

The restaurant name harkens back to those earlier days, too. It’s named for Andrew Wickman, the man who settled the land in 1910 and built the home that now houses the restaurant.

Holmes sees it as a welcoming spot, “with the friendliness of the Midwest, but also the professionalism that comes from my background competing with 18 other restaurants on the same block in New York.”

Fahrenkrug and Holmes plan to open by Memorial Day weekend.