Old Backes Food Mart building razed

Norm and Alice Matsche donate $65K toward project
By: 
Miriam Nelson
News Editor

It had been commanding the corner of Main and Wausau streets in downtown Birnamwood since 1885.

In the course of one day, Jack Kautza, of Kautza Excavating, had removed any semblance to the former Backes Food Mart building.

The project was helped along by benefactors Norm and Alice Matsche. According to Ed Resch, Norm’s cousin, the Matsches have donated about $1.2 million to the village of Birnamwood over the past few years to help make improvements.

Matsche and his wife have a long history of helping his hometown of Birnamwood.

Two years ago, they donated $500,000 to refurbish the grandstand and concession area for the baseball park. It was renamed Rivertronics Stadium, a nod to the business Matsche started in 1967 in Wood River, Illinois.

The Matsches were instrumental in the construction of the Matsche Community Center in 2012.

They also funded the demolition of the vacant downtown hotel, which opened up the opportunity for Aspirus Clinic to build a new facility in June 2017.

While in Birnamwood last summer, Matsche had a conversation with Resch, and told him he would be interested in helping with the cost of tearing the building down.

Resch spoke with Intercity Bank of Wausau and they agreed to sell the former grocery store to the village for $15,000. The Matsches donated $65,000 to cover the cost of the building and to also help cover the costs of the asbestos inspection and removal, as well as the Oct. 7 demolition.

Over the past few weeks, the village had several people come in to salvage parts and pieces from the inside of the building so the actual tear down took Kautza about 8-10 hours. Kautza, 74, has been doing this line of work for about 50 years.

Ed Resch, Jeremy Praslowicz and April Resch, the current owners of Chet and Emil’s, will be buying the property for the cost of whatever isn’t covered by the Matsche donation and will be using it as a parking lot. Chet and Emil’s operates as a bar, restaurant, banquet hall and bowling alley just across the street.

“We need the extra parking space when we have our larger events,” said Resch, “but if someone else wants to build a small shop there, we will sell it to them.”

Like other businesses, Chet and Emil’s has been working to recoup losses from the shut down in March. They had cancellations for large annual sporting banquets, and since reopening they’ve only had small weddings in the banquet hall.

The Matsches usually come back to visit family and friends each summer, but because of COVID-19 they didn’t make the trip this year. Matsche, 87, still goes into work every morning to answer phones for the company now run by his family.

“We’re very thankful for all they’ve done for the village,” said Resch.

Backes Food Mart had been in operation since 1976 until they closed the grocery store in 2017. During that time, they expanded the space for more groceries in 1979 and in 1983 added a smoke house area for making sausages and brats.