My family was invited to spend a weekend up at Tom and Kay Brunette's cottage here in Laona Wi. From that one awesome weekend, my family decided that they should buy some land and build a cabin for weekend and some vacation time away from Menasha Wi. It took some time for my parents to save up some money to be able to afford a cabin. In about 1983 they purchased some land and never looked back. Th
e property they bought was just south of Newald Wi. My dream was to one day be a Conservation Warden and live in the northwoods. Well, that never transpired. In my early 20's I started racing motocross. I worked as an electric motor repair technician. From there and through the years I worked as some sort of route sales. Working for uniform and linen companies, vending companies, and the nations largest AC Delco distributor! After 10 years of delivering automotive batteries I figured my end was coming sooner than later. I needed to leave my job before I had any kind of physical damage to my body. I also looked at my retirement plan.. Yeah, it did not look so good for retirement any time soon. I spent a lot of time on the road, which gave me a lot of time to think about my next move. The ideas I came up with were to buy a campground or a resort. Yup, you guessed it I didn't do that either. I started thinking about a bar, but where?? I looked at several different places, never finding a place I could see myself at or just not knowing the area it was in to be successful.. Here is where the story gets interesting.. It was February of 2022, my buddies and I are up snowmobiling. We stopped at JARS on a Saturday morning. We walked in and sat at the bar. Now I knew who Rick was but I knew his dad, Jughead, better. I asked Rick if he could remember being on the patrons side of the bar instead of the business side on a Saturday snowmobiling. Rick responded with, now I wait until Mondays and snowmobile Monday through Wednesday. I said, must be nice.. Rick responded with, well, you need to get a bar. I told him, funny you should say that, I've been looking but can't find the right fit. Rick then questioned me about being serious. I told him, absolutely.. Rick quickly responded with, I'm ready to sell.. My first thought was I didn't want a place that big especially with staffing issues throughout the country, which still continues today!! From there a lot of thinking went on. I told Rick I would come and talk with him towards the end of February.. I did and the rest is history!!! It took some time but I'm here now!!
