BTS of Milwaukee’s First Freshwater Food & Wine Fest w/ Adam Pawlak, Wes Shaver and Anthony Mlachnik

SPEAKER_03
0:00

With this event, I threw everything to the wind. I threw the budget out the window. I maxed out my Amex. It can't look like a rinse and repeat. It has to be fresh, new, modern, different. You can't walk through that gate and think you're walking in a summer fest butt with food and wine.

SPEAKER_01
0:16

Hey everyone, welcome back to Milwaukee Uncut. There's a new event coming this September that you're not gonna want to miss. And we've got a few of our good friends behind it, so we wanted to have them in today and take you behind the scenes of the first ever Fresh Coast Food and Wine Festival coming to Summerfest Grounds on September 19th to 20th. I'm joined by Chef Adam West Shaver and Anthony Malachik. Before diving in, I want to thank our partners that make Milwaukee Uncut possible. We'll kick it off with Nikola, the Middle West law firm injured. Get Nikolay and Russ, and the team will take great care. Next, we've got Annex Wealth Management. If you're looking to get your finances together and have a goal that deals with your money, your earnings, your investments, go talk to the experts at Annex. They have an amazing team ready to listen and help you with your personal goals. That's Annex Wealth Management, annexwealth.com. And last but not least, drink Wisconsinably Beverage Company, best vodka brandy and canned cocktails in the game, available at bars and liquor stores across the state, including the corner bar in Wright Field over at Amfam. So next time you're at a brewer game, make sure to check them out there as well. All right, let's dive in with the chef Wes and Anthony. Hey everyone, welcome back to Milwaukee Uncut. We've got a major event coming to the city for the first time ever, Freshwater Food and Wine Festival on September 19th and 20th, right down at Summerfest Grounds. And we've got the guys behind it. Here today, we have Chef Adam Pollock, just an absolute hell's kitchen legend, the owner of Egg and Flour cooking for kids. He's also a philanthropic guy here in the community, and he's been on the show several times. It's just good to see him. And a future Milwaukee VIP tour guide. This guy took us around Summerfest, rolled into a couple restaurants before it was like rolling in somewhere with with with royalty. You know, the mayor's just VIP tour guides coming your way. I mean the the escalade. Do you you have an escalate road? No, it's not. What is it? It's it's the escalade. You hop in, get a nice little whiff of a dart, and get driven around the city. It's just absolutely fantastic.

SPEAKER_03
2:43

So that's because he uber blacks on the side.

SPEAKER_02
2:46

Gotta make that money. Wes also has an escalate as well, just a couple years older.

SPEAKER_03
2:53

I do, but mine's the OG Escalade chef.

SPEAKER_01
2:57

What is it? You got some 24s on there, too?

SPEAKER_03
3:00

26s.

SPEAKER_01
3:02

Really?

SPEAKER_03
3:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01
3:03

Tell him what date. You have the Latrell Sprewell spinners to honor Milwaukee. I was at dinner the other night, and Cody did not know who Latrell Sprewell was. So I had to look it up and I showed him the shoes, and I was like, Milwaukee cultural icon, who's still at Joe Cats most nights a week, from from what I hear. I haven't been upstairs in a little while. But um anyway, the other proud escalade owner of this bunch. Um you don't have one, do you, Anthony? I don't have an escalate owner. Someday we can work our way up to that level. But yeah, but for now, we've we've got West Shaver in the building. First appearance on here. We finally got big enough for him to show up. So it was really nice of him to drop in. He's the CEO of Milwaukee Pride, um, put on Pride Fest, which we had a great time of going to for the first time this year.

SPEAKER_03
4:00

And it drew over 40,000 people. Yeah, just under 42,000. It was great.

SPEAKER_01
4:04

Which is the largest Pride Fest on festival grounds in the world.

SPEAKER_03
4:10

That's correct. We are the largest uh Pride Festival on a uh permanent site in the entire world, right here in Milwaukee.

SPEAKER_01
4:18

Which is absolutely amazing. And you're the owner of Revolve Experience Marketing, and you put on a number of other events, including this one. Yeah. And yeah, um, I saw you back in the day, you produced a comedy show at Mikey's, which had the best bomb night of all time on the Wednesday.

SPEAKER_03
4:38

Launched that bomb night.

SPEAKER_01
4:39

What?

SPEAKER_03
4:40

I was yeah, I that was uh fucking royalty in the in the building. We we did that um in 2009. We were the originators of uh bomb night. They were dollar bombs, and uh it was it was hilarious. We actually um the staff would wear military uniform and helmets, and we would play the song uh dropped a bomb on me, and when the song played, they were even more discounted. I'm gonna send you the flyer. 50 cents 50 cent bombs? Yep, it was yeah, so anyway, yeah, bomb night, Mikey's.

SPEAKER_01
5:15

Did you cross paths with uh Matt Mahalik? Who? Oh, he used to just buy trays, he was probably your number one customer.

SPEAKER_03
5:22

Probably. It was it was that was a blurry era in the hospitality industry.

SPEAKER_01
5:26

Okay, he might have well actually he was still doing that in like 2015, 16, so maybe you missed the blurry. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, that was his strategy. He'd buy a tray of bombs and just go up to groups of girls. Now you know, now you know the balls to the blocking.

SPEAKER_03
5:42

No, no, no, it's in the Rolodex. I guess, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01
5:47

And the uh other non-escalade owner, Anthony Malachek, senior wealth advisor over at Annex Wealth Management, former basketball star over there. He could play now. 2024 and up has a whole start. Did you you start that organization? Co-founded that organization. Co-founded that organization and has helped a lot of youth basketball players develop and get through that, and now has some kids that are looking good on the on the AU circuit. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and you're coaching too, right?

SPEAKER_05
6:18

I coach, I kind of do it all. Yeah, train, coach. Um, fortunate enough to work with guys that have come up in this area that you know are now playing professional basketball, both boys and girls. So kind of fun to see the full circle.

SPEAKER_00
6:33

Yeah, so you're speaking on WNBA. I was eventually as well.

SPEAKER_05
6:39

And uh brand currency. So, you know, like with social media and everything, we gotta be able to teach athletes how to optimize and monetize their brand. And a lot of it was around NIL, specifically to women.

SPEAKER_01
6:54

Very cool. And Annex coming in as one of the partners on this event, too. So uh before we get into a number of topics, do you all want to just tell the listeners how this event came to be and what they can expect?

SPEAKER_03
7:06

Yeah, totally. I'll start with that. Um so how it started is uh Milwaukee Rail Festivals put out a major master use plan. They wanted people to be a part of you know, curating events throughout the park throughout the throughout the year, other than just the weekend ethnic festivals, which are great, part of our city of festivals. And uh I had these, I had a whole bunch of ideas, and my buddy Adam and I have been working together for over a decade. And so I had this idea we both shared an idea to do something with food and wine, and we came together and I said, Hey, you know, Milwaukee Road Festivals put out this master use plan. Now's the time to do it. And I have the time, and with my decade of doing Pride Fest and my 20-year history in food and beverage, I go, let's do it. I I go, I think I could put the deck together and do the proposal. And we set it egg and flour in Bayview, and I I pissed it.

SPEAKER_02
8:08

You're not being very truthful. He went and did it and then called me and said, I did, I did something bad. Yeah, it's happening. We're happy about that though.

SPEAKER_01
8:19

You didn't even have to do any of the legs.

SPEAKER_02
8:20

I was ecstatic, yeah. And like I was gonna say, is I wouldn't have got jumped into a project like this if it wasn't with someone, if it wasn't with someone like Wes who does Pride Fest and events and all that, makes it, you know, a little bit more manageable and be able to focus on it more and know that all the really tough, hard things that you have to do to put on an event or a festival of this magnitude is taken care of.

SPEAKER_03
8:46

Yeah, and we it it events of this size are massive. Like people don't understand that these are seven-figure economic impacts just with festival expenses. Um, but when I was thinking about how to curate this festival, you know, Adam and I, when we worked together when I owned Black Sheep, we were super creative in how we brought people in. He was doing tasting menus before tasting menus were a thing. So this was the natural fit for us to work together on a high level and bring creativity to uh a lakefront festival. And yeah, I mean you're right. I you know, I did kind of went and did it without anyone knowing I was doing it, but but but he he was integral in the ideation of it, in the conversation, and I shared with him the plan and how I was gonna go about it, but I I I didn't tell him the date I was doing it, or you know, because I truthfully, you know, you might swing and miss, it may not work. And I didn't want to, you know, I didn't want to overcommit this idea if it wasn't gonna work out. And so um, but yeah, that's how it started, and it was it's been a lot of fun ever since.

SPEAKER_02
10:02

It's been over a year of planning, so it's not this is not so like we want people to understand like a lot goes into it, a lot of mindful ideas and a lot of ideas that will never come to life because you know you gotta work through it. You can't take the first idea and say, hey, that's what we're gonna do. You just kind of kind of come up with things and figure out what's gonna work, and we want it to be a fun experience for everyone from the talent to the actual guest of the festival and the vendors and all that that we'll we'll talk about. But a lot goes into it more than what people think, and we're excited to show what we've been working on.

SPEAKER_03
10:35

Yeah, so today is uh uh August 12th, I think, or 13th. I met with Milwaukee Road Festivals on August 4th to pitch it. So the whole festival's come together in less than a year, and it's and it's done. Like now, now is the point where we actually have to do details and and figure out how we execute it with all the the finer points, but this whole festival came together in where it's at today in just under seven months.

SPEAKER_01
11:05

And uh what what can people expect when they go there?

SPEAKER_03
11:09

Well, what makes this festival unique is that it's not like a traditional food and wine festival. Food and wine festivals across the country have a high ticket price. They're they're they're very um, they're not accessible to people. They start at $300, $500, $700, and they can go up to $10,000 for experiences. No shit. It's wild. But what I did was uh I took my experience of being in this business in the hospitality piece in the festivals, and we created a smoke break. Probably. Um the aftermath of a cigarette. Um and what we did was we created a food and wine festival that is actually in the spirit of a Milwaukee festival. So it's all all a cart. You've got a you know, a modest ticket price to get in, and then people get to pick and choose where they want to go, what they want to eat, what they want to drink, but they have access to three stages of live entertainment, a marketplace, all the vendors, and over 80 plus global wines that they may not be able to experience in a restaurant. So the model was let's create something that's super accessible, affordable, and meets people where they are in our city. That's that's what it's about.

SPEAKER_01
12:29

How much are the tickets?

SPEAKER_03
12:30

Tickets are 35 bucks, but they come with an acrylic, uh really nice stemless wine glass.

SPEAKER_04
12:39

Really?

SPEAKER_03
12:40

Because I've learned in my experience of doing festivals, you can go through 40,000 plastic cups. And the idea was let's let's start thinking about our global footprint and let's start reducing waste. So the idea is you get your ticket and you walk in Henry Mayer Festival Park and you're given this stemless wine glass. All of the uh bars and wine regions have rinsing stations built in. So it's easy for to get your glass rinsed, and then you can go from you know a big California cab to a sparkling, and it allows us to reduce our our our uh footprint with waste.

SPEAKER_01
13:18

We did uh we did some stuff with with Lowland's group for Belgian Beer Fest earlier. That was a couple months ago this summer. They they did the same thing. You got a glass and they had some rinsing stations in. Yeah. Is that nice? I think it was a good way to go. It was. Yeah, it was.

SPEAKER_03
13:34

Yeah, people love uh commemorative, they love to take something away, and this is the easy way to do that.

SPEAKER_01
13:41

Chef, what are you most excited about?

SPEAKER_02
13:44

What I'm most excited about, honestly, is to see well, there's two things that are pretty even. One is that the restaurants that are participating in this and actually serving food there are very high-end restaurants that people would consider, you know, top of the game for Milwaukee. And they're coming down there to provide, you know, really awesome, unique menus and their time and their weekend to show off what we have going on in this city because obviously it's not all local guests and people buying tickets. There'll be people from all over the place coming. So I'm excited for them and those restaurants to get outside the box of their fine dining or their upscale restaurant and to put on some uh food for the festival. And then my second most uh exciting thing would be the five-course chef dinner that we're doing on Saturday night. That tickets are on sale now. Um it's myself and four chef friends that are doing uh a big dinner in the middle of the festival with wine pairings with Anthony Garcia, our psalm, for the festival. And uh it's myself, Kyle Nall from Birch, Justin from Sanford, Joe Sastow from Food Network. He's up from Chicago, and he's been all over Food Network. He has a couple food brands, he's an author of a cookbook, and then Luke Zom, the host from uh Wisconsin Foodie. So we're putting together this awesome menu, large, long table running down, um, and amazing wines that will pair. So we're really selling those, but there's only 50 tickets, and those are going really fast. And uh excited to just see that come to life while the whole other festival is happening at the same time.

SPEAKER_01
15:24

Very cool. And Anthony, you guys, you guys are involved now. Why did you get involved in in something like this?

SPEAKER_05
15:30

Yeah, you said it well, Adam. Um at the end of the day, I think connecting good good people with good people is part of an approach that we try to take, specifically in the group that I lead up at Annex. Um, and that that is tends to be a little bit higher net worth. And you think about all the different things we do in the community with Annex, and it's it's mostly sports related, right? It's the brewers, we do a lot there, we do a lot with the the Bucks, we do a lot with the Packers, and looking at looking at being a chef and you know, thinking through those lenses and knowing Adam and seeing what he was working on, and then meeting Wes. I just think a lot of people also respect that as an artist just as much as you spec respect an athlete as an artist. And so when we were thinking about pairing that up and really uh trying to jump in on the first year of doing this, it really felt like a natural fit. And then some of the people, some of the headliners that they're getting access to is a really cool experience that some of our clients wouldn't be able to get access to if they weren't working with us.

SPEAKER_02
16:37

It's a good entertaining festival for Annex to have be a wealth management and have them come down and be able to entertain for a weekend. For sure. We'll take care of them really well.

SPEAKER_03
16:47

Did you know? Can I add something with this? So I I think people don't understand that having partners with folks like Annex is that their contributions to us allow us to keep accessibility high. And I and I I don't I don't think people truly understand what a sponsor and a partner means. Um to outside folks, they think, oh, they're just throwing a logo on a banner. But really having committed partners that are part of this process, those commitments help us keep entry levels low.

SPEAKER_01
17:21

Hey everyone, just wanted to take a minute and let you know that fall, which believe it or not, is approaching, is an amazing time to get your act together. And that includes with your finances. And that's why I want to introduce our good friends, including Anthony, who is on this episode over at Annex Wealth Management. Annex Wealth Management is a holistic wealth management firm with offices all around Milwaukee that helps you with everything retirement planning, smart investing, estate planning, legacy planning, and tax strategies all under one roof. They'll help you declutter old accounts, dust off your investment strategy, organize your estate documents, and build a plan focused on your goals. That's our friends at AnnexWealth Management. annexwealth.com know the difference. All right, let's get back to this episode with the chef, Wes and Anthony.

SPEAKER_05
18:19

Take yourself back to 10 years ago when you're because this is the inaugural, right? Yeah. So first year of doing it, usually anytime you there's kinks that you have to work through. Are there any any roadblocks that you're bumping into right now?

SPEAKER_03
18:34

Um, yeah, a lot.

SPEAKER_01
18:38

Yes, there is we put we put on some events that are for like always under 100 people. They're usually in like the 50, 60. You guys do that as well, and like still. It's wild. And that you this is obviously a completely different scale than most.

SPEAKER_03
18:58

Yeah, what's wild is that even after a decade of doing these large-scale events, no matter how much planning you go into it, you always find new obstacles. Um, but the one thing I'll share with you she was the uh she just retired, her name was uh Gay Lattel for the Malachi Row Festivals. Her biggest piece of advice was always plan for way more time. And uh she she bestowed that wisdom on me years ago, just talking about things, and um that has been huge with this endeavor. Um you know, we're we're working with global wine companies, and what we're you wouldn't expect is that with all the people that have to import wines from you know all these different countries, is that there's a huge lag in how they get here. So we created a menu with seven global wine regions, and we picked out our selections, but we had to order those wines months ago only to find out that some of them aren't able to actually get here. So now Anthony Garcia, our Psalm and our beverage director are saying, Hey Wes, we we're gonna have to pivot on a few of these, um, and it it's fine, but just let you know they can't get here. And to that same point, because of the way the industry is and how they allocate you know bottles and varietals to the regions and states, we're able to actually offer some really cool things, even domestic, uh, through cali from California, um, that you may not be able to get in any restaurant in Chicago, Illinois, um, or in Chicago or Wisconsin. And so it's um it's it's a unique thing to have these these obstacles but also opportunities because they don't they're not relevant to other events, they're not relevant to the food and beverage industry, they're not relative to a music festival, they're specific to this type of event, and that's been uh that's been a huge learning curve.

SPEAKER_01
20:59

How many people are you expecting at this one?

SPEAKER_03
21:01

So that's a great question.

SPEAKER_01
21:03

That's a great question.

SPEAKER_02
21:05

You probably have a ballpark ring, but you don't ever know the party when you're like, yeah, what it what are we doing?

SPEAKER_03
21:09

So we you know, we when I built the business model, you know, you're always conservative with your numbers because you don't want to uh think that you're gonna get you know 50,000 people your first year. So but this year, I think a healthy number is in that 15 to 16,000 range. If that's you know 8,000 a day or or 10 and 6, 9 and 7, whatever. Um but we're we're using data from other events that are down there, other festivals, and with the uh the uh reaction and the response so far, we're pretty confident to hit that 16, 15, 16,000 people.

SPEAKER_02
21:49

Yeah, people are really excited, and people, like I said, from out of the state and out of the city. But we want that support from the city as well, too. We want people to come down and enjoy and see something new. It's the first year. And it's going to be really exciting. And there's no shortage of entertainment or food or chefs or experiences. There's so much, especially for year one. And we can definitely talk about those special experiences too. So people know when they do go on the website, it's easy to navigate. Beautiful website that's easy to find what's going on and to track and buy tickets to the to the extra things that we have going on. Fire fire a wisp. What are some of those highlights? So the chef dinner that I talked about earlier is definitely a VIP experience. Um we have an experience going on on the lake, uh, the lake deck, which is um discourse coffee, is doing like a coffee-tasting uh Hill Valley Cheese right down the street. Your neighbor, they're doing uh cheese and cocktail pairing that you can buy, uh additional experience upgrade for that. And then Jason Morimoto from the brand new uh restaurant just opened, Nakama, right there on Cass and Pleasant. They're gonna be doing a very intimate uh omakase type two two seating dinner there as well that you can upgrade your ticket for. Um and I'll let Wes tell you about some of the other cool things that you can upgrade your ticket, and it's not hundreds of dollars, you know, for all these things, and it makes it accessible and fun.

SPEAKER_03
23:19

Yeah, so we I mean, it's a festival, and we wanted I wanted to create something that had music and and and just a fun atmosphere for people to enjoy. So we have the main stage with all these awesome chefs from all over the country: Hell's Kitchen, Top Chef Chopped, all that, which is Hamburger America, George Moats. But we also have two live music stages, and we're bringing in local live musicians to uh you know to to create a vibe. We have Pearl and Pop, which is with Maxie's a full raw bar experience, so oysters and and and seafood, but then it's all champagne and bubbles, uh champagne meaning you know, French champagne, but also Italian and some domestic, but uh it's all live jazz music. So you're in this pearl and pop experience, being able to being able to enjoy that live music and the bubbles and the seafood. But when you go north and you go to um Fox Meadow stage, you've got BD Greer and Joe Ray, people doing just great live acoustic music and an open, you know, mini amphitheater stage. So we want people to be able to spend the day. You don't have to commit to seeing every single thing, but you can pop around the grounds, you can enjoy the music, the chefs, the food, the wine, and it's a true destination in that in that idea that it this isn't just one thing for one person, just something for everybody.

SPEAKER_02
24:44

Yeah, the experience. You can tell them about the experience with Saz's and Champagne Room. That's the one that I'm really excited about. Okay, so everyone beer drinkers out there.

SPEAKER_03
24:53

Yeah, do you even know about this one yet? Yeah, I don't know. Okay, so so you know, when you're answering highlights in there, highlights. Oh, you'll see.

SPEAKER_02
25:00

This is a great deal.

SPEAKER_01
25:01

I'm pushing it.

SPEAKER_02
25:03

I'm pushing it.

SPEAKER_03
25:04

So it's um, so you know, when you're when you're truly a part of the City of Festivals and Henry Mayer Festival Park, you know, Miller brands was were the founding partners of that. They they invested so much money to create the those grounds and the stages. And I'm a legacy guy. I love knowing where we our roots and where we came from, where we're going. So in developing this food and wine festival and our footprint, we have the Miller stage, and that's where the flavor yard is with the food truck park, and we've got the pearl and pop thing. But uh included in that is the deck, the Miller Oasis deck that overlooks it. And I thought, oh gosh, what can I do with that deck that's fun? And I thought, well, every chef I know loves a high life after their shift. And high life has been a part of the restaurant and bar business forever. And so I thought, what if we did a play on the champagne room, you know, and we tipped our hat to the legacy of high life, and that's what we're doing up there, and it's gonna be really fun. Um, the Saz's team celebrating 50 years in business, I met with them and we created a fun, a fine dining menu, all inspired and infused with high life.

SPEAKER_02
26:19

Really? So, yeah, so never before seen food items from Saz's.

SPEAKER_03
26:24

Yeah, this is so they're the they they are the festival legacy food partner, right? And when I met with them, their team is so fun, and they're so like just do you know those guys over there? They're just gonna know them well. Oh, they're all right. They've got a good team over there.

SPEAKER_02
26:40

Yeah, they can finally go outside the box of what everyone expects them to do. Like, hey, we don't just do fries and mozzarella sticks.

SPEAKER_03
26:47

Yeah, and we had this great collaborative session. I met with their executive chefs and I said, if you're gonna be a part of this event, I want you to flex your creative muscle. And so they are, and so this high life, this uh the champagne room, the celebration of high life, they create an entire tasting menu up there if you buy the if you buy the ticket to get up there of all new creative items from their executive chef team. And even uh, I will I'll spoil this one. Um, they are doing a fine dining sampler platter, so everyone knows the chai fries, mozzarella sticks, and cheese curds. They're doing a version of that with um beef fat fries, they're doing uh Ellsworth High Life beer battered cheese curds, and then the uh the wonton is actually a Caprezier skewer with mozzarella, tomato, basil, and prosciutto wrapped in a wonton and fried. So they're doing a fine dining sampler platter for fresh water. They're the coolest people to work with. They completely embody the spirit of Milwaukee festivals, fun, great food, and um they're they're bringing the champagne room to life with that.

SPEAKER_02
27:57

Yeah, which is $60 add-on to your ticket. You can go up there and it, what is it, unlimited high life.

SPEAKER_03
28:03

Yeah, you can do high life.

SPEAKER_02
28:05

As much high life as you want for 60 bucks, and then there's certain time zones throughout the day that Sazes will be up there featuring some of this food during that. If you're on the high life deck, what a what a steal.

SPEAKER_01
28:17

I think so. I they are cool. I got to uh interview Steve Steve Susama for their 50th. What a legend! Dude, what a legend! He's so cool, he's gotta be in his 80s at this point, but yeah, he uh I walked in there, it was it was in the spring or like early spring, down to the state house, and he's he's just man in the bar. Yeah, just playing bar dice. Still, and I I thought we were just gonna do a quick video. I ended up turning it into a full episode of sat down, had uh had some beers and old fashioned.

SPEAKER_03
28:48

Yeah, I mean that's in those are the people that have really curated and helped form this culture we have with these festivals and the food, the beverage, the way we come together. You know, Milwaukee's uh is uh everyone's there's a seat for everyone at the table, and it's people like him that have helped create that. And with these any ethnic festival or any of the wonderful festivals throughout the city, they all lean into that same hospitality, and and that's what makes us super special.

SPEAKER_01
29:21

It was a Milwaukee-based show. Why why you all choose to live in Milwaukee are your favorite things about? I know you're you're from Ohio initially, right? And then came here, and Anthony, you were down in Chicago for quite a bit. And if you've been all traveling the world over there, jet setting, but choose to make this place your home. That's right.

SPEAKER_03
29:41

That's because nobody else wants them.

SPEAKER_01
29:43

Yeah, I'm stuck here.

SPEAKER_02
29:44

I just want home base. Uh you can always go and travel. I always tell people you can always go travel, you can always go uh for a month at a time or a few weeks or whatever, but it's nice to be here. It's nice to be where my family is, a lot of the community that I know, a network of people that uh make my life and job and business easier by supporting. So I just have a lot of support here. So it's good to be here, and it feels feels good when I come back, even if I am in Richie's words, jet setting around the world. You should keep that uh that voice memo going that way. You should be able to just hit that on a keyboard. Brie, record that, just put that in there.

SPEAKER_05
30:28

Yeah, I mean, spending time a long time outside of Wisconsin, I I think you don't realize all the things that we have here. And so when you take a step back and you're bet and you see the lake and you understand the the food culture and the sports culture and all the different things that go into the state in Milwaukee. Um, one of the things that I really think that's cool about this is you go to New York, you go to LA, you're in Chicago, you're at these different things, and you often see different chefs doing different, maybe not festivals, but different experiences and things. And so I just think this is really forward-thinking from Milwaukee. We're not just brats, beers, cheese all the time, right? We can do other things. We can compete with the Chicago's and New York in our own way. Um, because once people are here, like friends come in from California and they fly in and they come through the fifth ward or third ward, or in there like, I did not know Milwaukee was this cool, right? And so that's I think this is a step, another step in a good direction.

SPEAKER_03
31:32

Yeah, so I, you know, I'm from Cleveland, Ohio. I came here for college and I just stayed. Um, I love Milwaukee. I I love the Midwest. I love Cleveland, I love Detroit, you know, I love I just love the whole idea of the Midwest culture. Um, and to my friends here, their their points, I don't want to reiterate them directly, but they're 100% accurate. Like Adam said, if you live here, you can travel and go anywhere. You have access from Milwaukee and Chicago to travel and experience the world easily. And you know, Anthony said, you know, it's like we are a global city. And you when you're here, the athletics. I'm a big sports guy. You know, I um I I think sports are huge to a city's uh community and cultural and social fabric. And if you're in Milwaukee, you can go to the Bucks, the Brewers, you're two hours away from the Green Bay Packers. Likewise, you've got a world-class ballet, an orchestra, you've got skylight music theater. You if you're bored in Milwaukee, art museum, the art museum, the regular museum, yeah. You've got all these things, you have those, and then you've got the restaurants and the bars and the social things you do before, during, and after. It's just a great place to live. You can live so well here, and you can experience the world by hopping on a quick flight or a even if you just try to find it. Or a train. And so that's why I stayed here. I mean, I I stayed because um I think Midwest cities are special, I think they they need talented people to help them continue to be special. And Milwaukee, it's funny, Cleveland's the same way. So this is this is a little bit of a rib on Milwaukee, but um, everyone's everyone's very loyal to Milwaukee and's in Wisconsin, just like Cleveland is to Ohio's and Clevelanders. Being an outsider, coming here all alone, this city has really embraced me. I've done well here as a business owner, an entrepreneur. Um, I've met such wonderful people, and I couldn't imagine a better place to live. And I and I and I hope other people feel that way. Um, because it's it's it's really authentic here. And so I I I couldn't I couldn't imagine you know a better place. You know, sure, some other great cities, you know they have the views of Palm Springs, you got the beautiful views, you have all these places that you have. Friends come from out of out of town and think it's the ocean off of breath.

SPEAKER_01
34:04

Like you show them to a rooftop bar that overlooks like the city. Oh my god, it's a close.

SPEAKER_03
34:10

So it's it's just a it's a great place to live, and uh it's it shouldn't be understated.

SPEAKER_02
34:14

Yeah, that's what's good about this. So great about the festival is that we're gonna show off everything we got all in one weekend. Honestly, we're not missing you guys are going all out for year one, too. I know we need you people to come down and experience that.

SPEAKER_01
34:31

Is that scary at all? Because it's not like you're you know phasing into this. You you're just oh yeah, I know it's scary every day. All in.

SPEAKER_02
34:38

Oh, he doesn't even know. I mean, oh I know what he goes through. But I'm saying, you know, even from what I'm doing, no, he knows what you go through. It is crazy, it is crazy to see what goes into it, and like everything has the stars have to align.

SPEAKER_03
34:53

Yeah, it's I mean, it's it's wild. You know, we when I had this idea, it just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger, and um I just started like thinking about what will make people want to come.

SPEAKER_02
35:06

And which isn't a bad thing when it grows.

SPEAKER_03
35:10

Yeah, and and my my my fear was uh the truth is, and I'm okay being transparent about this, is you know, Henry Mayer Festival Park is the gem of the Midwest. It is the best venue for any live event, and I'll I'll take that to the grave. And everyone there is amazing. But the but the challenge is you they have the cultural festivals all summer. I'm a part of that with Pride Fest. I've been you know you can't it can't look like a rinse and repeat. It has to be fresh, new, modern, different. You can't walk through that gate and think you're walking in a summer fest, but with food and wine, or with Italian food, or with Polish food, or I agree, it has to be different, and so with this event, I to your question, I threw everything to the wind. I threw the budget out the window, I maxed out my Amex. Like the idea is this event it's the heart of Henry Mayo Festival Park, but it's new.

SPEAKER_01
36:15

Back in 2036.

SPEAKER_03
36:17

Oh me too.

SPEAKER_01
36:19

We'll be right here on this couch, Richie. Well, thank you guys so much for coming in and get your tickets for September 19th and 20th. Hey everyone, a big thank you to the chef Wes and Anthony for joining us. Make sure to get your tickets for Fresh Coast Food and Wine Festival on September 20th and 21st. Linked in the show notes. Website is linked in the show notes. And before signing off, just want to thank our partners one more time who make Milwaukee Uncut possible. Nicola, Annex World Management, and Drink Wisconsin, we beverage company.