All right.
All right, so give me a sense of
how long you guys have been doing
this.
Wally Weekend started about 1979,
so a 46 year, which has
been a fantastic run.
Started out with a very
small venue where we're
cleaning the fish in a very small...
Bucket and wash
station and going into
a couple deep fryers
not in a nice shelter like we
have today but just out in the
middle of the field where grassy
area so it's come a long
way from serving a
thousand meals a weekend
to we're doing over
2,500 meals
in Friday, Saturday.
Plus we have our fish sandwiches,
fish plates.
And fish wraps that we introduced
a couple of years ago.
So could you, I mean, would it be
legal to have a walleye weekend
without serving walley somewhere?
You can't call a wallet a weekend
without a wallet, right?
So tell me what's the process like
to get the wall light for this
because I'm sure a lot of people ask
Oh, does it come right off the boat?
We do get that question often,
but no it is source, it's Canadian
Walleye so we do work with a vendor
that sources the product for us
and they've been great partners with
us and
we they come through
somewhat fileted but we do need
to still touch every filet
to make sure that all the
gills are off and gone.
Then they go to our breading station
and battered from
there and into the fryer and...
Rate to serving the
customers.
Right
The beauty of it is that,
usually we have a little bit of a
line which is perfect, that
way that each customer is getting
a fresh filet.
Kind of, is there
a service?
There are Friday night fish fries,
you know, from four to eight it's
a sprint and then Saturday is a
little bit more of a marathon where
you know you get you get a few
pockets of busy times and some
slow times but yeah definitely
of course we have great music
going on all day long.
The headliners are late in the
evening so that's when we get
our biggest surges is right for the
big end.
What is it about walleye that
makes it different?
Many people thought better than
other fish fries that are out.
You know, for me personally,
it's just the best tasting fish,
maybe perch is a cool second,
but other than that,
it is just a good, nice filet
that fries really well,
in good size, and is
really delicious to eat.
You don't see a whole lot of
the upside down play for someone
that finishes.
If there's anything left, it's
usually a little coleslaw or a
little potato salad, but no fish
left.
So, how long have you been part of
the company?
I've been part of
our Lakeside Evening Kiwanis since
2008.
And what's enjoyable for you?
Why do you give up a weekend to do
this?
It is a lot of work, it's
not just a weekend, it is
at least a good 7 days plus
some planning beyond that,
but for me it's being able to give
back to the community.
We raise a significant
amount of funds that
go directly back into the community,
support a lot different projects
from youth sporting events
to the local
food shelters and
homeless shelters and other needs
within the community."
So, do you fish personally?
I do not, never had the
patience for it.
Do you have fishermen come through?
Is it mostly families or what's the
people coming through?
We have a lot of families
for sure, what's very nice to
see is that we
have the older generation which
is one of our strongest customer
base but then you also start
seeing the younger families coming
in and the kids enjoying the fish as
well which is fantastic so
that we know that there's going to
be a future generation of customers
for us.
And that's part of what we're
looking at is the broader culture of
walleye. Where does walleye, I mean,
how closely related is walleye to
a part of Wisconsin?
Definitely very very close
especially in this area.
Obviously we have the walleye
fishing tournament going on right
now, and it's just a big
part of Our
culture our community obviously the
Friday night fish tries are very
very popular all year all year long
Myself, I rarely miss a
Friday night. Fish try Probably
yourself as well, but yeah,
it's definitely a huge part of our
culture our Community and that's
one of the things I love about,
Wisconsin
Can I get you to say and spell your
name, just so I have it correct and
give you your time?
I'm Brian, B-R-I-A-N,
Olson, O-L-S-O-N
and I'm the treasurer
of the Lakeside Evening Kiwanis.
All right, Brian, appreciate it.
Thank you. So Mike's just going to
kind of walk.