All right, all right, so give me a sense of how long you guys have been here.
Wally, we can start about 1979, so 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 in a 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, we're a 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
years ago. So could you, I mean, would it be legal to have a walleye weekend without serving
walleye somewhere? Well, you can't call a walleye weekend with a walleye, right? So totally, what's
the process like to get the walleye for this because I'm sure a lot of people ask, oh, just
come right off the boat? We do get that question often, but I know it is sourced, 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 fillet, but we do need to still touch every fillet and
make sure that all the gills are off with them, then they go to our breading station and battered
from there and into the fryer and right to serving the customers. So 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 fresh fillet.
So what kind of, is there a surge that happens at certain times of the day?
There are Friday night fish rides, you know, from four to eight, it's, 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
headliners are late in the evening, so that's when we get our biggest surges is right before the big
ants come on. So what is it about walleye that makes it different? Some, many people's thoughts
better than other fish fries that are out there. You know, for me personally it's just the best
tasting fish, maybe, maybe perch is a full second, but other than that, it's just a good nice fillet
that that fries really well in good size and is really delicious to you.
I'm sure you don't see a whole lot of the upside down plate for someone not finished it.
If there's anything left that's usually a low coleslaw or a low potato salad, but no fish left.
So how long have you been part of your team? I've been part of our lakeside evening
one since two thousand and eight. What's enjoyable for you? Why do you give up a weekend to do this?
It is a lot of week. A lot of work. It's not just a weekend. It's a whole at least a good seven days
plus some planning beyond that, but for me it's been able to get back to the community. We raise
a significant amount of funds that go directly back into the community, support a lot of 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 fun 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 long. Myself, I really miss a Friday night fish
try and 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 a correct name to give your title? 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,