What do beef snack sticks and cheese curds have in common?
They were both big hits at this year’s Iola Car Show, thanks to an area business and a service organization.
Primal Eats, a craft meat smokehouse, restaurant and catering business on County Road VV between Gillett and Keshena, and the Wittenberg Lions Club returned as vendors to this year’s show, held July 9-11 in Iola. The event that typically draws more than 100,000 visitors.
Primal Meats took over a building that formerly housed an Iola Lioness Club food stand, while the Lions set up three trailers near the show’s tower.
David Kiedrowski of Primal Meats said the car show offers a great opportunity to get the word out about the business, which opened in May 2021.
“I believe this is our third or fourth year,” he said. “We brought our manufactured beef brisket snack sticks, because we are known for our brisket. We have a whole manufacturing plant for those snack sticks. We have our pulled pork that we make at the restaurant, so that’s another main item. We’re doing a fried bread pulled pork sandwich, and we’re also doing it on a pretzel bun.”
Kiedrowski said the car show is a chance to spread the word about Primal Eats.
“We’re part of a small community in Gillett, Wisconsin,” he said. “From the beginning, we knew we had to be heavy into marketing. Our main focus is customer service and quality food. We try to provide that family-friendly atmosphere. When we first opened our doors, we had a couple of pizzas, barbecue and a few sides. I think there were 14 menu items. That’s it. On our first weekend, we sold out of everything. We had to go buy toasted sesame seeds for some of our products.”
Primal Eats now sells its snack sticks in more than 2,000 grocery stores and convenience stores across the United States.
The business also recently opened a grab-and-go, AI-controlled retail store on County Road R north of Cecil.
“We have freezers and coolers,” Kiedrowski said. “You swipe your credit card, and it preauthorizes the charge. You go shopping and nobody has to check you out.”
Besides sandwiches, Primal Eats also served cheese curds at this year’s show for the first time.
“We make our own cheese curds and source those locally and bread them ourselves,” Kiedrowski said. “This is our first year of being able to offer those, and we’re so happy to be able to do those this year.”
Say cheese
While cheese curds were one of several items on Primal Eats’ menu at the car show, the business wasn’t competing with the Wittenberg Lions Club, which set up trailers about a mile away.
Club member Gary Thompson said the organization has brought its cheese curd trailers to the show since the 1970s.
“We’re one of the first food vendors they had here,” he said. “We just keep coming back, and it’s the largest fundraiser we have. As a rule, we probably net out between $10,000 and $11,000.”
Money raised from the sale of the curds is earmarked for several uses in the Wittenberg area — including $1,000 scholarships awarded to up to five Wittenberg-Birnamwood High School graduating seniors, Wittenberg-Birnamwood Nature Center, Special Olympics and a track meet that the club sponsors each spring.
Club members look forward to returning to the show each year, according to Thompson.
“They’ve been good to us here, and it’s growing,” he said. “It’s like the second-largest car show in the United States.”
Club members showed up at this year’s show with three trailers.
“We always had at least two, but now, we’re going with a pre-breaded, frozen curd. We bought this blue trailer with two freezers in it, the white trailer is for supplies and all of our deep fryers are in this one.”
The club gets its cheese curds from Nasonville Dairy, near Marshfield, and switched to pre-breaded curds from Nasonville Dairy about three years ago.
“When Bletsoe Cheese out of Little Chicago went out of business, we lost that outlet,” Thompson said. “We used to do the breading ourselves, but that takes a lot more help. We have an older club, so we don’t have a lot of young help.”
Cheese curds aren’t the only item on the menu when the club travels to other events, Thompson said.
“We have Lavender Days coming up next weekend just north of Wittenberg on (U.S. Highway) 45, and that’s a one-day show where we’ll sell pizza and deep-fried cheese curds,” he said. “The Wittenberg Corn Roast is coming up on the 17th of this month. We have (Wittenberg) Community Days coming up on the 24th, 25th and 26th of July, and we can’t forget about Eland Days on Aug. 8. In September or October is Nueske’s company picnic.”
Thompson said the club focuses on selling cheese curds for a good reason.
“It’s Wisconsin,” he said. “Everybody loves them. If you get out of Wisconsin, they don’t know what a cheese curd is. We were down in Kansas City, Missouri, one time and we stopped at this car repair shop, and I said, ‘Oh, we sell cheese curds.’ He said, ‘What the heck is a cheese curd?’ I sent that guy a package, and he texted me back and said, ‘Those things are addictive. I was going to have a couple before supper and ate the whole bag.’”
Aloysius Waub, of Keshena, prepares large pieces of fried bread July 9 in the Primal Eats booth at the Iola Car Show. The business, which opened five years ago on County Road VV between Gillett and Keshena, brought a full menu of sandwiches and appetizers to this year’s show. (Greg Seubert)
Rick Block, president of the Wittenberg Lions Club, spent most of his time at this year’s Iola Car Show frying cheese curds in the club’s cheese curd trailer. The club has been selling curds as a fundraiser at the show since the 1970s. (Greg Seubert)
