Slinger, Wi – Slinger’s loss will be Mayville’s gain as Mark Kuehl, owner of Jim’s Place, announced he will be reopening after he shutters his business at 201 Kettle Moraine Drive S in Slinger. The announcement about the closing of the landmark business kneecapped a lot of neighbors who filled social media with treasured memories.
Some of the memorable comments are posted below.
“My wife and I ran Jim’s Place the last 17 years,” said Kuehl. “We’re going to move to Atwell’s Pub because we own part of that business, and this can never happen to us again.”
Kuehl is referring to the lease arrangement he had with the VFW Zunker-Held Post. He said the rent was going up, again. VFW commander Chris Ellenbecker confirmed.
It was a tense situation from both parties. Kuehl said, in the end the community is the one that lost.
“This is an iconic place,” said Kuehl. “I didn’t start it, Jim and Brenda Herther did. I give them all the credit. We just moved it along and got it even bigger. I don’t mean to sound bitter, but I really am, because it’s just not right. I wanted this place to be here for a long time; it’s going to be hard for his whole community.”
Kuehl reminisced about when he took over Jim’s Place and tried his best to keep things the same. “We did the same exact thing they did. We just added more items,” he said.
The towering flavor burst cones was a “Jim and Brenda thing” according to Kuehl.
“Make the cones have ice cream as high as the Eiffel Tower… that was Jim and Brenda. People think we’re giving it away. We’re not. We don’t even have to advertise. We literally had people coming in from all over the world; people just got wind of it through word of mouth.”
Kuehl’s heartache comes from the change. “The name tags on the wall… it’s like you’re walking into a step back in time. That’s what we were going for. We wanted to keep this because we really, truly believe that there are going to be none of these mom-and-pop shops left anymore,” he said.
Five is the record number of generations of families Kuehl has served. “It’s three generations every day. I’m not exaggerating, 20 times a week at least, and people say I came here with my grandpa, or I came here with my grandma. That’s what’s really disheartening.”
Kuehl’s lease runs through the end of October; however he said his last day will be October 13, 2024, and Jim’s Place will be celebrating with an “End-of-an era party.” Everyone is welcome. 11 a.m. – 7 p.m.
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“The lease for Jim’s Place is not being renewed by the VFW,” said Ellenbecker.
Jim’s Place has a rich history in the community. The building, once home to office space for the Slinger Foundry and later Fred Groth’s Shoe Store, was initially a bakery, which is how Jim’s Place actually started.
Jim Herther is the namesake. “I took over City Bakery in West Bend at 326 N. Main Street when I graduated Slinger High School in 1973,” said Herther. “Back then it was owned by Arnold and Ada Kannenberg.”
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At City Bakery, Herther recalled they “made everything fresh.”
“We worked at night, so it was fresh that day. We didn’t buy frozen stuff or anything. Everything was from scratch including our jellies, our custard, and our cream,” he said.
The donuts, according to Herther were homemade. “We would mix them, let them proof up, and then we would deep fry them in a donut fryer. You put them on a screen and had starch cloth pans. Yeah, things have changed,” he said.
The bakery in West Bend was doing so well, Herther would load his station wagon for deliveries on his way home to Slinger.
“I would always go home to get a little sleep, and I would take bakery, like bread and hard rolls and drop it off at people’s houses,” he said. ” It was getting to be too much, so I told my wife Brenda we got to find an outlet store in Slinger.”
The Herthers found a little shop where the bowling alley used to be in downtown Slinger, near a little grocery store. “We just put bakery cases and people bought it,” he said.
At the time the VFW hall in Slinger was home to Fred Groth’s Shoe Store. When that went out Jim and his wife started a little shop with donuts and coffee.
“I think that was in the 1980’s and I brought donuts over in a pickup truck,” said Herther. “They were in boxes and on trays and every morning these faithful individuals came to help. It was like an assembly line, and they would slide the trays out of the truck, and hand it to a person, and that person handed it to a person, and they put it on the counter.”
After the donuts, Herther added ice cream to the menu.
“It was very reasonably priced,” he said. “I used to have cones for a quarter and that was before we had air conditioning, and the ice cream would melt but we had lines out the door. People were having fun. It was a blast.”
In 2000 Herther sold the business to Mark Kuehl.
Ellenbecker said the VFW plans to remodel the space and possibly find a new tenant.
If anyone is interested in leasing the space, contact Chris Ellenbecker at 304-400-3196.
