Earlier this summer, my wife and I were driving through La Crosse, WI and stopped off for lunch at a downtown restaurant we first went to a number of years ago, Piggy's. While the meals I've had at Piggy's in the past have been good, the lunch we had that day was pretty underwhelming. As we left Piggy's and started down 2nd Street to the north, we came upon a restaurant that I had never seen before - La Crosse Distilling Company. It looked like a bustling place with outdoor seating and a good lunch crowd. We sort of wished we would have found that place first instead of going to Piggy's. Jump ahead a couple months and my wife and I took a weekend drive up the Mississippi River to check out the fall foliage. We decided to head up to La Crosse - which has been a favorite destination of ours for years - and spend the night there. But my ulterior motive was to have dinner at La Crosse Distilling Company.
Nick Weber is a native of La Crosse and the majority owner in La Crosse Distilling Co. If you're from the La Crosse area, the Weber family name is well-known. Nick's father, Don Weber, is a long-time entrepreneur and real estate developer in La Crosse. Over 30 years ago, the elder Weber started National Health Screenings, a company that focused on employee health assessments and screenings for corporations. He sold that company and started Health Screening of North America, a company that soon became the premier drug and health testing company that many large corporations and the United States government used - and still use to this day - to screen potential employees. Weber sold that company and in 1999 he started Logistics Health Incorporated (LHI), a company that focused on the readiness of medical and dental care for members of the military.
Weber, himself, was a decorated Viet Nam war veteran who joined the Marines after graduating from high school - something he had a hard time achieving before joining the military. After his stint was over, Weber worked a number of menial and odd jobs that didn't pay much money. He often found himself sleeping in the streets because he didn't have money for a place to live. An entrepreneur at heart, Weber dabbled in start-up ventures that, at first, didn't pan out. At one point, the Weber's lost their home because of a failed business venture. But he kept at it, learned more from his mistakes and failures, and started National Health Screenings in 1987.
Years later as LHI continued to grow, Weber focused on developing a plot of land in downtown La Crosse. The LHI headquarters were built on riverfront property in the downtown area. Weber's property management company - The Weber Group - has developed restaurants, hotels, commercial buildings, and mixed-use residential and retail locations. The Charmant Hotel, a boutique hotel that Weber opened in 2015, is housed in a former candy company. Belle Square, which was built on a former parking lot across from the La Crosse County courthouse, is a mixed-use building for commercial and up-scale residential space. And the hotel my wife and I stayed in that evening, Home 2 Suites, is a Weber Group hotel that opened in July of 2016.
Nick Weber oversees The Weber Group and one of the properties the company sought to develop was at the corner of 2nd and Vine in downtown La Crosse. Weber wanted to bring a distillery to La Crosse, but not just any distillery, but one that relied on a more fundamental approach in terms of sourcing ingredients for their distilled liquors and foods, and an organic and sustainable method of using geothermal energy for much of the heating and cooling the distillery would need.
About six years ago, Weber made friends with two men who had disparate vocations - one was a musician/manager/record producer, and the other worked as a brewer at one of the leading craft breweries in America. The three talked about Weber's distillery dream and they all agreed to bring the dream to fruition. Planning took about three years before things began to take shape. A fourth partner - this one a chef - was brought in from another well-known Midwestern craft brewery to run the kitchen and devise an eclectic menu using locally-sourced food when available.
Chad Staehly was a native of Green Bay, WI who went to college at Colorado State in Fort Collins, CO. Staehly was a musician who dabbled with rhythm guitar, but was more of a keyboard player, and worked in bands and did production work while in college. After graduating with a liberal arts degree in 2001, Staehly continued to play in his band - Great American Taxi - while also managing other bands and working as a record producer and working for record labels such as LoHi Records and Melvin Records. In 2013, Steahly joined the American Roots /Alt. Rock group Hard Working Americans that included singer/songwriter Todd Snider, Neil Casal - who played with Ryan Adams, Blackfoot and other musicians, as well as being a solo artist - and two members of Widespread Panic, bassist Dave Schools and drummer Duane Trucks. Their eponymous album of alternative rock cover tunes that was released 2014 received high praise from critics. The group released four albums before the untimely death of Casal in 2019 due to suicide.
Staehly's wife went to the University of Wisconsin - La Crosse and he had a younger brother - also a musician - who lived in the greater La Crosse area. Staehly loved the music scene in La Crosse and when his friend Nick Weber told him about the distillery, he became more intrigued. With Staehly's background in management and promotion, Weber eventually talked him into moving to La Crosse to be a part-owner as well as the brand manager and head of marketing for the distillery. Staehly, his wife and their two daughters moved to La Crosse in the fall of 2017.
Mitchell Parr was a native of Vinton, IA and graduated with a degree in chemistry from the University of Northern Iowa in 2005. Instead of teaching or going to work for a corporation, Parr decided that he wanted to follow his passion - and that was brewing beer. He moved to La Crosse after college and worked at a microbrewery in the area. He met Nick Weber not long before he ended up moving to Chicago to work for Lagunitas Brewing Company as a brewer at their facility there. Parr stayed in touch with Weber and finally moved back to La Crosse in the fall of 2017 to partner with Staehly and Weber in the La Crosse Distilling Co.
Pictured at right - from left Chad Steahly, Nick Weber and Mitchell Parr. Photo courtesy La Crosse Tribune.
While distilling liquor was going to be the priority, the three knew that food would be a good draw. They wanted to find someone who could bring an immediate identity and some culinary cache to their distillery. Finding someone like that is like finding a needle in a haystack. But fate dealt them a winning hand when renown Twin Cities chef Jorge Guzman became available.
Guzman was born in Mexico, but grew up in the St. Louis area. He went to college at Drake University in Des Moines and played middle linebacker on the Bulldogs football team. Guzman graduated with a degree in advertising, but he found that food was his passion. He spent two years at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY garnering an associates degree in culinary arts. From there, Guzman went to Chicago to work at a couple of restaurants before ending up as the chef at what was one of my favorite restaurants at the time, the now-shuttered Tejas in Edina, MN. After a short stint as the Executive Chef for the University of Minnesota and later at the Corner Table restaurant, he became the Executive Chef for Solera, a Spanish restaurant in downtown Minneapolis. After three and a half years at Solera, Guzman became the executive chef for the Surly Brewing Company's new beer hall and their upscale Brewer's Table restaurant in 2014.
While at Surly, Guzman was named 2015 "Chef of the Year" by both the Minneapolis Star-Tribune and by Foodservice News. He was featured on The Food Network's "Iron Chef Showdown", as well as in Time magazine and Travel + Leisure. In 2016, Guzman's Brewer's Table was recognized by Food & Wine magazine as one of the top restaurants in the nation. The same year, Guzman was a semi-finalist for the James Beard Foundation Best Chef Midwest, and he was a finalist for the award in 2017.
However, it was announced in the summer of 2017 that Surly Brewing was closing the Brewer's Table and that Guzman would be leaving after the closing. It wasn't long after that when Weber made him an offer to come to La Crosse to oversee the kitchen at La Crosse Distilling, as well as develop other restaurant concept with The Weber Group. Guzman jumped at the chance and was named a limited partner in the business.
One of the biggest undertakings of the La Crosse Distilling Company project was digging a geothermal well near the building to provide energy for the building's heating and cooling system, as well as providing some of the energy needed for the distilling process. Weber sought to have a highly sustainable signature in the design of the distillery.
With everything - and everybody - in place by the summer of 2018, La Crosse Distilling Company opened for business in early September of 2018. The place was an immediate hit with the locals. Guzman and Parr work with local farmers for the grain and potatoes needed for the distillery, as well as locally-sourced, sustainable and organic foods for the food menu. A local company provides the white oak barrels that the distillery uses to store some of their liquors. And in addition to making liquor on-site, Parr also makes at least one seasonal beer that they have on tap - a nod to his brewing background.
It was less than a 10 minute walk from our hotel to the La Crosse Distilling Co. (see map) It was a beautiful fall day with brilliant sunshine, light winds and late afternoon temperatures hovering around 70. There were a lot of people eating on the patio and they had extended seating out into the parking area in front of La Crosse Distilling along Vine St. We had noticed that same idea when we were on vacation up in Northern Minnesota earlier this summer and we weren't big fans of it. But, I figured that with dining restrictions inside many restaurants, they're trying to maximize the number of patrons they can serve inside and out.
We got into La Crosse Distilling around 5:30 and were greeted by a young lady at the hostess stand. She told us that it would probably be 15 to 20 minutes for a seat and asked what our preference was. I deferred to my wife on that one and she chose outside. We went over to the bar to get a drink while we waited.
The main dining/bar area at La Crosse Distilling - they call it the "Tasting Room" - features a number of high-top tables near the windows with a long community table in the middle. The large windows on the east and south side of the building allow an abundance of natural light to filter into the Tasting Room. The decor in the dining/bar area could be classified as modern industrial. In addition to the Tasting Room, La Crosse Distilling Company has an upstairs room for private gatherings.
We ordered up a couple drinks made with La Crosse Distilling's signature Fieldnotes brand of liquors. The rye, wheat and corn grain La Crosse Distilling uses are organically grown on a local farm by the McHugh family. Another local organic farmer produces potatoes for the distillery's vodka, as well as organically-raised foods for La Crosse Distilling's food they serve. I ordered up a vodka and lemonade, while my wife got a cosmopolitan. We thought they were fine drinks.
It was sort of a relaxing atmosphere inside La Crosse Distilling Company. For a big open space with a lot of windows, metal beams and a concrete floor it wasn't all that loud. They played an eclectic mix of music from the likes of Lukas Nelson (Willie Nelson's son), Alabama Shakes, Father John Misty and the Canadian musician known as Bahamas. I would have been happy had we eaten inside even though the weather outside was spectacular. We were finishing up our drinks when the hostess came over to grab us for dining.
She shepherded us outside and to a table in the parallel parking spot in front of the restaurant. My wife and I were sort of hesitant. Cars were driving by less than 10 feet from our table, the table was at an angle toward the curb, and it just seemed like a forced and somewhat awkward dining experience. My wife was like, "Are you OK with this?" I told her that I guess we were going to have to be OK with it. Either that, or wait a few more moments back at the bar waiting for a table to open inside. And the line to get a table was backing up rather quickly. We decided to hang where we were at.
We had our menus in hand and were looking them over when our server for the evening, a fun and outgoing guy by the name of Ted came over to greet us. He wanted to know what we would like to start out for drinks and my wife ordered one of their margaritas (I don't think they made tequila at La Crosse Distilling, but I could be wrong), and I ordered an IPA that they had on tap from one of the local La Crosse microbreweries, Turtle Stack Brewery.
The food menu at La Crosse Distilling isn't extensive, but it's certainly interesting. Appetizers such as charred beets and papas machas - fried organically-grown potatoes topped with a slightly spicy and nutty salsa, whipped ricotta cheese, and sugar-cured jalapeños - really jumped out to us. They had a burger with locally grown organic beef on the menu, as well as a handful of Mexican-inspired dishes from Jorge Guzman - mahi mahi tacos, smoked pork enchiladas, birria beef tacos and vegan-chorizo enchiladas.
Before we ordered our food, my wife was wanting to get one of the other appetizers - the smoked Great Lakes whitefish stuffed avocado dip. It came with sliced cherry tomatoes, chopped bacon sourced from St. Joe's Country Market - an upscale butcher shop in La Crosse - sliced red onions, herbs and fried capers. It all came with small slices of toasted pumpernickel bread.
This was a remarkable appetizer. We made little hors d'oeuvres out of the ingredients and the taste was just fabulous. I had never ever thought about having fried capers before, but the heating of the capers really brought out an explosion of taste. This was a great start to the meal. In fact, I told my wife that I could have just had that for dinner and I would have been happy.
Since there wasn't a whole heck-of-a-lot to choose from on the menu, I was torn between the smoked pork enchiladas and the mahi-mahi tacos. My wife suggested that she get the tacos and I get the enchiladas and we could share to see what we liked better. She's a genius and I definitely married up.
The smoked pork enchiladas came out in sort of a surprising fashion - they were in a bowl with a corn tortilla on top. The pork was organically-grown locally and smoked with hickory wood. The carnitas-style pork was mixed with black beans in a green chile sauce. It was baked with chihuahua cheese and finished with pickled shredded radishes. It wasn't all that big, but it looked pretty interesting.
My wife's grilled mahi-mahi taco also came on white corn tortillas and was topped with salsa verde, a lime crema, cilantro and pickled radish. It, too, wasn't a lot, but it would be enough for her and me to try.
The smoked pork enchilada was rather interesting. The pork had a hint of a smoky flavor to it, but the salsa verde was a little spicy and really went well with the pork and the black beans. I decided that I liked it in comparison to more traditional enchiladas that come wrapped and covered in a sauce.
My wife liked her grilled mahi-mahi tacos, as well. She gave me one to try while I handed her my bowl of smoked pork and black beans. I found the mahi-mahi to be a little fishy in taste and sort of overcooked. But my wife thought what she had was fine in taste and quality. We both agreed that what we had ordered for ourselves were best for us.
I went in to use the restroom and afterward I decided to take a picture of the distillery operation through the window of the bar area. There was a man seated where my wife and I had been seated at the bar and he said, "Hey, you can go back there and get a picture, if you like." I was sort of incredulous, but he said, "No, no! Come on back. I'll take you in there."
This was a shorter man with short gray hair. He looked like just a guy seated at the bar having a drink, but he ushered me back into the distillery room and walked in with me. One of the workers was back there and the man announced that I wanted to take a couple pictures of the operation. "My son runs this place," the man said. "I don't know how any of this stuff works."
I thanked the guy for letting me in the back room for pictures and I went back out to our table out front. My wife was talking with someone who appeared to be a manager from some of the earlier observations of him interacting with the staff. She said, "This is John! He's from Iowa, too!" Turned out that John was from Glenwood, IA in the southwestern part of the state.
I used to know someone from Glenwood years ago, but John didn't recognize the name. "I've been out of there for awhile," he told me.
As John was standing there talking with me, the man who took me back into the distillery came out on the deck to talk with someone. I said, "Hey, John. Who is that man? He took me back into the distillery to get a couple pictures of the tanks and barrels."
He proceeded to tell me that it was none other than Don Weber, the multi-millionaire entrepreneur. I didn't know Weber's story at that point - or even who he was - but John told us sort of a "cliff notes" version of Weber and his life. John had nothing but praise for Weber as he evidently helped John out when he was down and out. "He had a tough upbringing," John explained. "He lived on the streets for awhile and he's always looking out for those in need.
"A lot of people don't like his politics," John went on. (It turns out that Weber is a huge Donald Trump supporter and has helped raise millions of dollars for his campaigns in the past.) "But just the other day, he came in here and ordered 25 of the smoked pork enchilada bowls and he took them to the park and distributed them to homeless people. He's a great guy and he does a lot for a lot of people around here."
John had left us and Ted came out for one last check. Ted's service was friendly and he was a funny guy. He tried to entice us with some dessert, but the sun had set and the dry air was cooling down rather quickly. We decided to call it an early evening.
While the menu was short on food choices, what they had at La Crosse Distilling Company was pretty interesting and pretty good. My smoked pork enchilada was not traditional in the sense of what you would think an enchilada would be, but it was very good. My wife was happy with her grilled mahi-mahi tacos. And we were both very happy with the smoked whitefish stuffed avocado dip. I'm sure that they want to emphasize their in-house liquors more than the food, but it's nice that you can go and experience both. La Crosse Distilling Company was pretty much everything we figured it would be - good food, good service, good atmosphere. It was a wonderfully nice and light meal at the end of a wonderful day.
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