ELY- The restaurant property at the corner of Sheridan and 3rd, most recently the home of Rockwood Grill, is about to come back to life. Michael and Nicole Cascone plan to open the Frisky Otter Restaurant by the start of fishing season in mid-May.
“That’s our target date. It’s going to be tight, but things are things are coming along nicely.”
The Cascones have years of experience rehabilitating and running restaurants. “We’re really into the food part of it,” Michael Cascone told the Timberjay. “The Frisky Otter is going to be more like a Wisconsin supper club with daily specials … we’re going to have some steaks and chops, a variety of fish, burgers, stuff like that. But we’re going to have healthy options and a nice array of salads.” On Friday through Sunday, the restaurant will also serve breakfast.
Cascone said they want to have affordable menu items. “Not everyone wants to get the $40 steak, but that will be an option. But there will also be daily specials like meatloaf and pasta that will be more reasonably priced.”
The Cascones plan to run the restaurant year-round. “We may close for two or three weeks in mid-February, just to clean and take a breather. But I think there’s definitely a niche to be open all year.”
Redesign underway
“I’ve done a lot of rehabs and I’ve rehabbed restaurants before,” Cascone said. The couple owned a restaurant in the Lake Geneva resort area of Wisconsin. “That was the first rehab I did. I rebuilt that place up from the studs.” The Cascones ran that restaurant for 12 years before selling it to one of their employees.
The renovation isn’t a complete makeover. The restaurant will keep the wood interior and booths from the Rockwood but the old tile floor has already been replaced with wood. The interior will have two fireplaces and a new sound system.
“We looked at the Rockwood and the kitchen was just fabulous.”
The Cascones aren’t doing much to the kitchen. They ordered a new stove and steam table and they will remove most of the smokers. Other than that, the kitchen will keep its current configuration.
Inside the dining spaces, the area facing Ely’s Historic State Theater will become a bar with a large flat-screen TV for watching sporting events. The other half of the seating area will be a dining room, though it too will have a giant flat-screen TV.
“I want a place where a customer can come and watch a game and get a full meal at the same time,” Cascone said.
“We’re trying to keep all our contractors local,” Cascone explained. “Everyone was concerned that we’d have a hard time finding people to work on things and I guess we’re lucky that we’re able to. We’re getting things done and it’s progressing very well.”
The Frisky Otter will also sport state-of-the-art electronic ordering.
“My wife Nicole has a lot of previous restaurant experience. She’s coming in with all handheld ordering equipment for the servers, so there’s no miscommunication. When you put in your order at the table, everything will go right to the kitchen. We’re trying to streamline everything and make it a good customer experience.
The Cascones
“I’ve been coming up to Ely every summer. I’ve missed three summers up here since I was a teenager,” Cascone said. “I have a lot of friends up here.”
Michael Cascone is from the northwest Chicago area and received a business degree from National Louis University in Chicago. Nicole Cascone is from the Lake Geneva area and attended the University of Illinois campus in Chicago. After they sold their restaurant in Wisconsin, they moved to Florida where they started and ran Blue Gulf Realty for over 37 years.
The family owns a summer cabin on Fall Lake, a house on Chapman Street that they rent out, and their current four-season home “a mile down Hwy. 1.” The Cascones are transitioning to living in the Ely area full-time. Their 17-year-old daughter has been a student at Vermilion Country School in Tower since the beginning of this school year.
“We were thinking of retiring to Ely and maybe starting a restaurant in a few years,” Cascone said. He noticed the number of recently closed restaurant properties in Ely and took a look at them.
“I looked at the steak house and Sir G’s, and, of course, Rockwood… I decided to pull the trigger and buy it.” The Cascones put their offer in for the Rockwood property this fall. Commercial real estate takes more time than residential, with more complicated financing and longer contingency periods. There was also another offer for Rockwood at the same time as the Cascones’. When that offer fell through, the Cascones’ offer was accepted.
Looking for work?
“We’re still looking for some employees in different areas. We have hired some folks already and we’ve had a pretty good response.”
Cascone is especially eager to find people for the kitchen crew. “It’s funny, because everybody wants to be a bartender. But we need kitchen staff … We’re looking to get a core group of about eight to 10 full-time people. Part time people are great, but it’s nice to have dependable full-time people that become part of that family and that you can count on. We’re gonna try to go that route.”