Latest / Stream of Consciousness with Dan: Stories from the Midwest / Stream of Consciousness #55 - Chuck Bigler - Puempel's Tavern

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Stream of Consciousness #55 - Chuck Bigler - Puempel's Tavern · Stream of Consciousness with Dan: Stories from the Midwest

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Surprise, everyone! We've got a bonus episode today.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't planning on dropping anything, but sometimes you get a conversation that just feels too good to sit on.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: I had the chance to talk with Chuck Bigler from Pimple's old tavern in New Glaris, Wisconsin.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: A place with history, character, and a whole lot of heart.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: Chuck's got stories, he's got perspective and honesty.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: This one just felt right to share today.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: So here it is.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Please enjoy.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Alright everyone, we are live with Stream of Consciousness with Dan.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: And today I'm talking with Chuck Bigler, the owner of Pimple's Old Tavern in New Glaris, Wisconsin.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: A place that's been part of my life for basically as long as I can remember.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: My aunt and uncle lived in New Glaris when I was growing up, and Pimples was always a part of our visits.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: And it's still part of my life today.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, it was the very first true Wisconsin tavern my wife ever experienced.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: And now we make it a point to stop there every time we're in town.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: Chuck actually lived behind the tavern and later bought it to preserve the history, the charm, and the old world Swiss feel that makes pimples such a special place.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: Chuck, how are you doing today?
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: I'm doing just fine.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: Well, as I told you online, the only thing that could make this better is if we had an ice cold spotted cow in our hands.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, we can only do so much, right?
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: So uh yeah, so before we get into the history of pimples, I kind of wanted to just talk about uh what your childhood looked like growing up in Nu Glaris.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um and yeah, just kind of talk about that what you looked like as a kid, just to kind of humanize the man behind kind of the pimples legacy, if you will.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I was born in Nu Glaris several, several, several years ago, and I grew up there.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: My grandfather my grandparents owned a tavern in Nugis, which is still there, still thriving.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: My grandfather came from Switzerland, he was a bricklayer, and he wanted to build a tavern in Nugis, and um he wanted to build it Swiss style, and the locals told him that he needed to build it American style, but he insisted and he built it as a Swiss-style tavern, which is now the Ott House, which is located downtown Nuglaris.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: It still has its original Swiss look to it, and it was basically probably the first Swiss-style building in New Glaris.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: So I spent my childhood hanging around Grandma's Tavern and uh grew up in Nuglaris and had no desire to ever leave New Glaris.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: I liked it, it was a small town, had a great feel, and the thought never entered my mind of leaving.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: I did go to college for four years over in Platteville, got an English degree, and uh obviously never used that except the English part of maybe running a tavern, but uh I settled in a house behind the tavern.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: It was for sale.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: I was looking for my first house to buy, and this one came available.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: I had known the older couple that had lived in the house, and I knew their five grandchildren, and uh when she passed away, I knew the house was going to become for sale.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: So I asked one of the grandkids if they were gonna sell the house and I'd like to have first crack at it.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's located in the middle of the block, and it just happens to be behind Pimple's Tavern.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: We shared the driveway with Pimples, and I got to know Otto Pimple, who ran the tavern for 58 years.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: I got to know him very well.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: He was my next door neighbor, my only neighbor, because we were right downtown, and uh I purchased the house and um was living there in 1975 until the tavern came up for sale, or I heard that Otto wanted to sell the tavern in 1993.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: So I approached one of the grandkids and uh Otto's and uh said I'd be very interested in purchasing the tavern.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: And they told me, well, he'd be more than happy to have you own it.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I basically had only one goal in mind, and that was to preserve it and not have it turn into being a so-called maybe biker bar, um, a place where there was going to be live music, um something that would pretty much diminish the value of my house, which was located right behind it.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: So I purchased the tavern as a hobby and kept my regular full-time job at the car dealership in town and decided I would try it for probably five years and see what happened.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: So I hired girls to run it.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: I would clean it in the morning before I went to work.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: They would run it, I would check on them at noon and make sure everything was going okay.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: We added food to the menu that he auto never served food.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, interesting.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know that.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yep, we needed to do something to add to the income.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: So we couldn't put in a grill or a deep fryer because uh it's got the hundred-year-old murals on the wall.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: We didn't want to take a chance on the grease and smoke from the frying material.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: So we came up with a menu that included cold sandwiches, cheese, uh, cheese plates, pulled pork sandwiches, Italian beef, any soup, chili, anything that we could do in a slow cooker or soup warmer.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: And we operated it like that.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: Well, all of a sudden, five years had gone by and it was going okay.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: So I figured, well, we'll just keep doing it this way.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: And all of a sudden it was uh 28 years, and uh it was time to retire from my real job.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: So the tavern went from being a hobby to my retirement, so to speak.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: So that's the mode I'm in right now.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'm running it basically the same way.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: Got the girls that run it, I help them out when they need to.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um they watch me, and if they think it's time for me to go home, they send me home.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: And uh but it's it's it's been an absolute blast.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I couldn't imagine anything other for my 34 years that I've been there.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh very enlightening.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: I've met so many people that I couldn't count how many it would be impossible, but I've had a lot of fun doing it, and I hope I can just continue on for a while, anyhow.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, it it really shows, um, like I said, uh, it's just you get there, you know, like you said, those murals on the walls.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: The kitchen looks like it's about five square feet, if you can even call it a kitchen.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: Uh that might be a stretch at five feet, I'm not sure.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: But but it has something about it, it has and it still holds true with me.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: There's something in the air that just wraps its arms around you and wants you to explore it further.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh it's an incredible place, and I'm only the third owner since 1893.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, the first non-pimple to have it.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: Joe and Bertha built it in 1893.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: They ran it until 1935.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: Otto was actually their stepson.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: He was born above the bakery.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: His parents passed away of the Spanish flu when he was three years old.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: And uh they adopted him, moved him in downstairs or upstairs, and he ran it for 58 years until I purchased it in 1993.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we'll we'll get into that history in a second, um, in a little more depth.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: But I always like to ask people from Wisconsin really what being a Wisconsinite means because we're a very proud state.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: We produce a lot of uh just amazing products, but we're not arrogant, we don't you know rub it in people's faces.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I just kind of wanted to hear it from you, yeah, just what Wisconsin uh being from Wisconsin means like to you or means to you.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: That's a tough question.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: It really is.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh there's a lot of pride.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um we pride ourselves on being friendly.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um Wisconsin uh draws a lot of tourists, so if you're dealing with a tourist, you have to learn how to treat them right.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: And uh we're proud of our cheese, we're proud of our packers, we're proud of our brewers, we're proud of the university.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's just a very relaxed place to live, and we're close enough to um Chicago, we're close enough to um Iowa.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we can get the Twin Cities, we can get out of our comfort zone within an hour or two hours of driving, but it's always just nice and comfortable to get back.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: I wish I'd have known that question a week ago.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: I maybe could have prepared a better answer, but there is just something about Wisconsin that makes you want to stay, and it's uh uh it's it's just unique.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, I I completely agree, and I actually like that I didn't give you chance a chance to prepare because I got to hear just an authentic answer from your heart.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: So don't worry about that at all.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you're exact you're exactly right though, because as I had mentioned, I I took my wife up there several years ago now, and she'd never been there before.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: And you're right, she didn't want to leave.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: Can we sell our house and move to Wisconsin right now?
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: And uh it's it's also funny.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I I grew up in Kansas mainly, and uh all my family was originally from Wisconsin, that's where I was born.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: And my parents finally, when they retired, decided to sell their house in Kansas and now live full-time in Wisconsin to Broadhead.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: So uh it just kind of it's just a testament to you know what that state means.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: And like I said, I've I only lived in Wisconsin for about five years, but I consider myself a Wisconsinite, and I always will.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, just it it's I bleed green and gold.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I've got cheese running through my blood, I've got nuclear beer running through my veins.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: So uh so no, that was a good answer.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: Unfortunately, you're still in the Midwest.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: I am, yes, and Midwest nice is truly truly a real thing.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um and whoever you're hiring at Pimples, they've always just been so gracious, so nice, and it they just make you feel right at home.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: So that's good to hear.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I I before we get into the history, I have to ask when you do the thing with the coin and the tack and the dollar bill, where did that come from?
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: That idea originated in Monroe in a article called Bumgarners.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's a very similar to Pimples, except it's in the bigger city, so it operates a little bit bigger.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: But what they do is they started throwing dollar bills on the ceiling.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: And um, one of my bartenders worked there, so she asked if she could do it at pimples.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: So we uh put a thumbtack through a dollar bill, fold it around a 50 cent piece, and underhand throw it up on the ceiling, and hope the 50 cent piece pushes the tack into the 100-year-old wood.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: And we started that.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: We used to throw them all, and that's what Bum Gardner's does, the bartenders throw them.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: But with a limited staff, and your number one goal in bartending is to serve drinks, not throw dollars around.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: So we started letting the customers throw the dollars themselves.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: So they would we'd furnish the 50 cent piece and the thumbtack and fold it up for them, and they would throw it on the ceiling.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: Eventually, the ceiling got too full, and you would throw a dollar, and two or three might fall down.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: So we harvested them and donated to a charity, and then we turned that into an annual event.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: Every March we take down half of the ceiling, either the front half or the back half, and we donate them to a different charity.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: Currently, we're over$32,000 that we've donated to different charities.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: I used to take them down myself, but I was a fireman in Nuclaris for 25 years, so I was friends with most of the firemen.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: And as a retired fireman, they look out for us retirees.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: So they realized that I was taking the dollars down.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: And uh one year I offered to donate it to them, so they volunteered to come and take it down, and since then they come back every year in March and they take them down for me, no matter who I'm donating them to, and it takes them about 45 minutes to an hour, and they can clear off$2,000 off the ceiling.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: They bring in uh three, four ladders and 12 guys, and they consider it a night of training, and they uh remove the dollars and we donate them to a usually a local charity.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: We did have done in the past some of your larger charities, but it's more rewarding to give them to a smaller charity that has more of a tendency to appreciate it.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: So every year we'll be harvesting uh back half in a couple of weeks here.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_01: So we'll choose a charity and donate it, and we'll start all over on that half of the ceiling.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: But it's it's just something different, unique, and it's amazing how people can get so excited about taking money out of their pocket and throwing it onto somebody else's ceiling and walking out the door.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's uh we get a lot of fives, we get a lot of tens, twenties.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: We occasionally will have a hundred dollar bill up on the ceiling, and uh it's just something different that we do.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, I don't know if anybody practices it at home before they come.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: We get some very, very unique shooting going on in there.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I was gonna ask, is there is there a strategy uh to make sure I always tell people the not look up when you're throwing, look straight ahead, bend your knees, follow through, and that seems to work the best.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: We found that uh softball pitchers are the best at it because it seems to be a normal rhythm.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: I like yeah, like a normal motion.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yep, oh golfers, golfers, not so much.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: Oh man, I I remember as a kid the first time I got one to stick, it was like Christmas morning.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: I was so excited, yeah.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's a very rewarding feeling, and yeah, and knowing that all that money is going to be, and it makes a unique town.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we've done many, many worthy chur charities around Nougar.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's it's such a simple concept and it's fun.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: It makes you feel good, and yeah, you're supporting charity, and I yeah, that's awesome.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: That's so cool.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: It just is absolutely so cool.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so yeah, so I I do want to shout out the pimples themselves.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: You touched on the history a little bit, but I've heard some conflicting stories based on my research, but you said there were three, there's only been three owners, right?
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: Correct.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so who was the what was the second owner after the original pimples?
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_01: That was their stepson Otto.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, Otto.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's right.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: So and again, even I touched on this as as well to pres preserve the legacy because it probably would have been easy to, as you said, turn it into a biker bar or a sports bar or or something like that.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: But that's not what I don't even think New Glaris is a is about.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: There's so many cool taverns, um, like you mentioned um growing up at Otts.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, there's just so many cool little places that just really preserve authenticity and tradition and just do things the the right way.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: It can be a little simplistic at times, but that's not what it's about.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: There's just something about going to pimples.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: For me, you just grab a table, there's no loud music going on, there might be a TV in the corner with the game on, but it's about conversation, it's about spending time with family and friends over just simple cheese and meat and sandwiches and beer, and it's it's just beautiful.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: So could you just touch on that a little bit?
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the unique the unique um thing that I had going for me was where nobody else usually does.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: I bought the business as a hobby, so I did not have to try real hard to generate income out of it.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: We added the food, but hobbies do not usually make money.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: If you can find me a hunter or a fisherman or a golfer that is actually making money at their hobby, I'd like to meet them because usually a hobby costs money.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: My hobby was unique in that if I broke even at it and at the end of the year didn't cost me anything out of my pocket to take care of my hobby, I was doing just fine.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: Uh that made running the tavern easier for me.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: Where if I was an entrepreneur that bought the tavern to make a living, I'd have been more tempted to probably make changes, put in a stage, uh, video games, uh jukebox, pool tables, things that would generate income to sustain the business.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't have to worry about that because if it broke even, I was happy.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: Plus, when you when you look at the situation, I am Swiss, and if I don't have to spend any money, I'm happy.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: So by keeping it uh exactly the same as it was when I purchased it, it was the sensible thing to do for me because I didn't have to put any money into it.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_01: When I purchased it, purchased it, it was basically just the way it is, the way you see it 35 years later.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: The back bar was brought in in 1912, and it was made by the Brunswick Corporation, and it was purchased by the Pimples.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: They bought the back bar, the bar itself, and the old ice box that still is being used every day at the end of the bar.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: And that was a complete set from Brunswick.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: And according to Otto, his dad paid about a thousand dollars.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: For the set and had it delivered from either Ohio or Iowa.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: They had a Brunswick had a factory in both those places.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: So it was shipped in by rail and installed.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: We refinished the back bar and the top of the bar about 20 years ago now.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: And uh it's all made out of cherry wood.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um the craftsmanship is incredible.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: You have to see it to appreciate it, but it is a very, you couldn't make it that way now.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_01: But you're, you know, you're a lot of your tavern owners are in it for um speed and ease of cleaning, and a lot of those old bars got torn out, broken up, thrown away, and replaced with Fermica, which is definitely easier to keep clean.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_01: It always looks the same, it doesn't darken with age.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um the it takes furniture polish on my Brunswick, where you don't have to do that with the Fermica.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: So you can see where the tendency has been that way, but I think that what I found over the last probably 10 years is that the especially the younger generation is really starting to appreciate history a little more than they did 35 years ago.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: When I bought the place, I would have young college-age kids come in and they would instantly look around, say, Oh my gosh, there's no jukebox, no video games, no pool table.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: What are we gonna do in here?
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: And it kind of smells old.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_01: And uh they would I'd send them to the sports bar in town where I knew they'd be entertained, but now over the last four or five years, I'm getting that same age group coming in and saying, Wow, this place is cool.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_01: How old are these murals?
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: How old is that bar?
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know, because they're not seeing that every day, and for some reason they're starting to appreciate history, and that's really makes me feel good.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_01: It really does.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I love to tell the story.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: I my goal is to every day in my retirement now is to grab a young couple that I can tell I've got a knack of knowing if they're going to be interested or if they're not, and just walk them around the inside of the place and give them the history of what's in this what's in the tavern.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I've got a video on my website that you can view, and it's about a 19-minute video, and uh high school kids did it as a project, they came in and they videoed it, and then I put a voice over it, so you can hear the the almost exact story I would tell you live if I can.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: So it's very rewarding, it's very it makes me feel good.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: Well, good.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's what it's all about.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I was gonna ask.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like small town America has really declined in the last several decades, but when I go to New Glaris, I do feel like correct me if I'm wrong, but I do feel like the economy is uh pretty stable, you know, there's a a pretty good downtown scene.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: I know it's very small, but I guess could you just touch on that?
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: Because you go through small towns sometimes and it's just a ghost town.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so why do you think New Glarus is a little different?
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think it's because back in 1962, I was just a kid then, but um the big industry in town was the pet milk plant.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: Pet milk, uh, they made evaporated cans of milk, mostly for cooking, came in a little probably four or five-ounce can.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: There was pet milk factories all over the Midwest.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: The headquarters was in St.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: Louis, I believe.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: But they employed just about everybody in Nugaris who worked at the pet milk plant, either full-time, part-time, or delivering their milk from their farm to the factory.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that went out of business in 62, and um a lot of people became unemployed.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the businesses that we did have needed a way to sustain their business, and they opted to go the tourism route.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_01: So they focused their um industry as tourism, and we had a large embroidery factory that made lace, they had um all their looms and everything were imported from Switzerland, Germany, and it became a destination for a lot of people.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_01: Back then, everybody, most of your parents sold, your grandparents definitely were sewers, and they made all of their wedding dresses for the family.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: They would come to Neglaris to buy the material to make the wedding dresses.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it was a booming, thriving embroidery factory.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_01: It was it was huge.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_01: So the businesses in town kind of piggybacked off of that and became little tourist destination shops.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_01: So if you came to New Glaris to buy your material, you came downtown to eat some authentic Swiss food and shop in your authentic Swiss shops.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: Well, not long after that, the New Glaris Brewing Company started, which is boomed into an unbelievably large corporation.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's huge.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_01: Spotted Cow is that's a household name throughout the nation.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's only sold in Wisconsin, and it's made right here in Nuglaris.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: So we went from an industry to no industry to a huge industry in a short period of time.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: The Nuclear's Brewery Company started the same year that I bought pimples, 1993.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_01: So I always tell the joke that we started out together, we just grew at a little different speed.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: But they they they have been wonderful for the community.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_01: If you tour the Nu Glaris Brewing Company, before you leave, they give you a little token.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_01: The token is only good if you come back into Nu Glaris to redeem it.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_01: So it's redeemable at any of the nine taverns in New Glaris.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_01: And uh you tour the brewery, they don't have a restaurant there, they don't have a bar there, they do your sampling, they close at five o'clock, they give you the token, you come to my place and you walk in with this little token, and in the summer months during the tourism, I'll redeem three to four hundred of those tokens a month, which means that they have put three to four hundred people in my door in a month.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_01: A business the size of mine, the toughest thing, and especially with mine, is the toughest thing is to get the people to come in your door.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_01: I've got enough inside to offer them.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_01: Once I can get them in the door, they'll stay just because of all the history on the walls and the back bar and stuff.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_01: But to get them in is the tough part.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_01: And there she is that the brewery, I'm referring to the owner, she's putting three to four hundred people in my door every month, and so it's a great relationship that we have between the business community and the brewery.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_01: Works very well.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: They bring out distributors from all over Wisconsin that come for meetings, they always make sure they bring them downtown to experience the town.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's it's just a wonderful relationship.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: So we have people that come back every year.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_01: They're doing a$55 million expansion as we speak.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_01: That'll be open back up in the spring of 27.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_01: So my theory is that anybody, the thousands and thousands of people that have visited the brewery in the last 30 years, will want to come back and visit again to see what the$55 million expansion is all about.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it's only destined for success, as far as I can see.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, I'm I'm super excited to see the expansion because that brewery is already gorgeous.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's state of the art, but also like rustic in a way, if that makes sense.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, oh my gosh.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I'm really excited to see that.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Chuck.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I I wanted to talk about your food again because I I touched on it a little bit, but just something as simple as a ham and cheese sandwich on rye.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: It just tastes so good because I don't know where you're sourcing it from.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to necessarily tell me, but it's like it's just the perfect sandwich.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I I don't know why.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: Is it just the ingredients and where you're getting it from?
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: Or I don't know.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like I just we source all of our food that we serve well pretty much locally.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_01: I happen to have a classmate from high school that owns a meat market.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_01: He has been in business as long as I have.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's his next generation is now taking it over, but that's located right here in New Glares, and that's where we get all of our meats from.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we have some unique meat, uh Liverwurst sandwich, which some people will know as Braunschweiger.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_01: That's my dad's favorite.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_01: Now we call it Liverwurst and uh Limburger cheese.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_01: We do all our cheese locally, it's within uh 10 mile radius of Nu Glaris.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_01: We have fresh cheese curds.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_01: Uh they're not breaded because, again, we don't have a fryer because we want to preserve the murals.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: So we have a uh unbreaded cheese curd.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_01: We call them a naked curd, but we pick them up weekly right from the factory.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_01: They're made with a munster cheese, and we just heat them up in the microwave and they just melt in your mouth just before after the squeak happens because you got to have a squeaky curd.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, all our cheeses are Swiss brick cheddar, and the famous Limburger comes from the local factories.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_01: We choose our bread very carefully so that we make sure it's a good bread that's goes good with the meats.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_01: We don't have a uh fryer again, so we don't have French fries.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_01: We do a bag of chips with every sandwich.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I don't know if it's the quality of the sandwich or if it's the atmosphere that you're sitting in when you're eating it.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'm deciding it's the combination for me.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because I have taken the I have taken the bread and the meat home and made a sandwich.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't taste the same in my kitchen as it does sitting at the bar eating exactly the same food.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, no, I completely agree with that.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: You need the combination, so special.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: Nope, 100% agree.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_00: And we've talked about the murals, but we never really did mention oh, I was literally just gonna ask that people that are hearing.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, yeah, yeah.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_00: So go ahead and talk about those because they're definitely cool.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_01: Turn of the century, the last century, the 1900 one.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the place pimples was a boarding house.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_01: The pimples lived upstairs, but they also rented out 13 rooms.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_01: And at the time, there were a lot of people coming from Switzerland to establish themselves in Nuclearis or the Nuclaris area.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_01: So before they could get established, they needed a place to stay.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_01: So Pimples was a boarding house, it had 13 rooms.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_01: The boarders paid 60 cents a day, and that was for three meals and a bed, and there was 13 rooms, one bathroom upstairs.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_01: So most of the time there was 13 guys staying upstairs, sharing one bathroom, which can only envision had to be a very interesting situation first thing in the morning.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_01: But these uh boarders, um one in particular, a guy by the name of Albert Struben, uh, couldn't quite afford his 60 cents a day.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_01: And he asked Joseph Pimple if he could possibly paint murals on the big white walls that existed in the in the bar.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_01: So the pimples found him four postcards of mostly family-related things, like the one is a town in Switzerland where Mrs.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_01: Pimple was actually born, and they had a postcard.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_01: And uh Albert took the postcard, built some kind of a scaffold.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_01: We have no idea, we've never seen any pictures or any writing of what he stood on, but he painted these um murals, which are about eight by ten foot in size, and very detailed.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_01: There's grape vines all around the outside of the murals.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_01: Each one of those was painted by hand.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_01: There were no stencils back in those days.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_01: He had to build some kind of a scaffold, which he had to get up and down off of many, many, many times.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_01: He also was painting with a bar full of people that I assume were probably heckling him, telling him he missed the spot here or there.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_01: And he finished all four of the murals in six months.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_01: He started in June of 1913, he finished on New Year's Eve of 1913, and when he got done, he asked Joseph if they were to his liking.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_01: And Joseph said, Oh my god, they are absolutely beautiful.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_01: Why are you even asking?
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_01: And uh Albert told him, he said, Well, I have never done anything like this before.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_01: I was so desperate for a place to stay, I thought I'd give it a try.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_01: And they are fantastic.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_01: And over the years, um, the UW Art Department came down back in the 50s, which is now 75 years ago, but they came down and looked at them as far as restoring them, but determined that they were too far too far aged to bring them back to what they were.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_01: And they were obviously covered in smoke, and um, so they recommended that they put a coat of polyurethane over them.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_01: Polyurethane, unfortunately, in the 50s was only one sheen of polyurethane, which happened to be very shiny.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_01: So they put this coat of polyurethane on them.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_01: It made them very shiny, they're very hard to photograph, but we can wash them with soap, water, vinegar.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_01: We cannot hurt them because we're just washing very similar to a polyurethane tabletop.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_01: We can we can scrub them with a brush, uh, we aren't gonna hurt them any, but now they've they are what they are and they can't be restored.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_01: But um, back to my theory that I mentioned quite a while ago in this podcast, um, why would I want to restore them?
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna cost me the last estimate I had was about thirty thousand dollars per mural.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_01: There are four of them.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_01: And if I did do that, which I am Swiss, so I'm not gonna do that, but if I was to do it, I know that the first 10 people that came in the door, nine of them would say, Oh my gosh, they're beautiful.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_01: What did they look like before you restored them?
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_01: I don't have to answer that question.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_01: I can just have them look at it and say, These murals are 115 years old, and this is what they look like.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_01: And you can still tell what each one is.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I got the advantage that the three of the murals are on an inside wall, so they don't take the temperature change at all.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, they're not neural windows, so they never had sunlight.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_01: The one mural that is behind the bar, which is a Civil War scene where Wisconsin fought its most famous battle of the Redbone Church in Mississippi, has taken the biggest beating because it's on an outside wall.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_01: The windows used to go all the way to the ceiling, they face the south, so it took the south sun for a hundred years.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and a steam pipe used to run right through the middle of it.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_01: I did move that.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_01: I got my Swissness out of me and said, let's get that hot steam pipe away from the painting.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_01: So we did move that steam pipe, but that one is deteriorated the most.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_01: But at 75 years old, which I am, I'm gonna let the next person worry about it because this is how it's gonna be for the remainder of my lifetime.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_01: So that's fair enough.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's and then in the back on the back wall, he painted a clock.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_01: He had a little bit of a sense of humor to him.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_01: He painted a clock on the wall and did not put any hands on it.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_01: And the people asked him, What's the deal with the clock on the wall with no hands?
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_01: So then he said that he should probably finish that.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_01: So he painted lettering on the sides in German, and on the one side it says, which is for the lucky, and on the other side of the clock, he painted Schlagkind Stunde, which is in German translates into English, strikes no hour.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_01: So if you read it, it says for the lucky strikes no hour.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_01: So hence no hands on the clock, then made sense.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_01: So and that's still there too, and that's 120 years old.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_01: So it still doesn't tell any time.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_00: That is an incredible story, actually.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it is.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_01: I enjoy telling it now, yet even 30 years later.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_00: And again, that just goes back to what we've been talking about.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_00: That's what makes pimples so special.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_00: You can't go to a bar, probably anywhere in the country, and see an authentic mural like that, with that cool German saying, like, yeah, that that's really neat.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_00: So seriously, everybody, if you get the chance to go to pimples and nuclearis, you kind of have the story now of why those murals are so important.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, just that was beautifully told, Chuck.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_00: And uh it brings me kind of to a a couple, two more questions before I let you go.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, just it's it's a simple one.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_00: What do you want people to feel when they leave pimples for the night or for after their lunch or whatever?
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_00: What do you want them to feel?
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_01: I guess the first word that would come to me my mind is fulfilled stomach and mind wise.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_01: Like they have seen something that maybe they haven't seen before.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I feel like.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, I I definitely get that.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um and then my my last question, and obviously you bought this place to preserve it, but eventually it will need to move on to somebody else.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_00: So I guess are you maybe anxious when that happens that someone will change it, or I guess just kind of where do where do you see pimples going in you know the next five, ten, twenty years?
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_01: I'm hoping that it does not change at all.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I've got a couple of uh family members, um stepsons, uh nephews, nieces that I'm hoping can continue it.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, if they choose to do something different, I'll have no control over it.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_01: But I hope to stay there until I cannot stay there anymore.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_01: I've got it set up where it almost runs better without me there, except I do have the history down pretty pat.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_01: I can tell the stories, but uh it runs very, very smoothly with uh staff that I have.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_01: And uh the future you can't always control everything, but I'm hoping it's set up that it could continue on the way it is.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_01: I have apartments upstairs that will sustain some income and a business next door that rents that will help the situation.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_01: So it can cash flow.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm just hoping that whoever gets it appreciates what it is and just continues on, and that's my hope, and my hope is to just stay there for another 24 years because I need to be to equal auto uh longevity running the place.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_01: He ran it for 58 years, so I'm at 35, and uh so when I tie him at 58 years, I'll be 99.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_01: So my ultimate goal would be to have one huge birthday party when I turn 100 and exceed Otto for his uh well, but everybody's gotta have a goal.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_01: So at the moment, that is mine.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_00: So oh man, I love that.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's really funny.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_00: Otto is probably laughing up in heaven right now.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_00: I hope so.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_00: Oh gosh.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uh well, Chuck, seriously, um, thank you so much for taking time out of your day to sit down with me and talk.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_00: Everything pimples, uh, sharing your memories, your perspective, and just everything you're doing to keep pimples authentic.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_00: It it's really a landmark, not only in New Glaris, but for me, just in the entire state, it really embodies what Wisconsin is all about.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_00: So the next time I'm in town, I'm gonna get your phone number, I'm calling you up, and we're having a beer together, okay?
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_01: I hope so.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_01: And then I'm gonna get you a sweatshirt because the t-shirt can't be even in Nebraska, I would guess it's not t-shirt weather today.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_00: No, but I put on a I put on a long sleeve under it.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_00: Oh if you are, but but I had to represent.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_01: But well, when you come out, I'll get you a sweatshirt so that you'll be able to dress appropriately year-round.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I appreciate that.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_00: But seriously, to all my listeners out there, places like Pimples really matter, and the work that Chuck is doing to preserve it, it means a lot to the town, the community, and honestly, just to people like me who grew up with it.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_00: So, again, thanks so much for being here, Chuck.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_00: I wish you nothing but the best.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I might crack open a cold one, it won't be a spotted cow, but um, but no, seriously, thanks so much for being here.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for having me.