Wholly Cow! The owners of Delafield's popular custard shop are retiring. Will a buyer emerge?
DELAFIELD - Inside a time-honored frozen custard shop in Delafield's central business district, you get the distinct impression that this place isn't all business.
And you'd be right. Initially, in the early 1990s, it was simply Jim and Jan Stoffer's Main Street home, the place they bought to raise their young family before the corner house, bit by bit, evolved into the place called Wholly Cow, a homey restaurant known for its custard sundaes, big burgers and, well, homey atmosphere.
The spot where two booths fill the mirrored west wall was once the house's living room. The entryway where orders are taken was a porch. And the rest of the former living space was eventually transformed into even more indoor seating, a condiments bar and drink station, and even a little gift shop, where a sign for sale that reads "Home Sweet Home" seems particularly appropriate.
The big question now is, "Will it last?"
For customers, the words "Wholly Cow" might serve as their exclamation over the announcement of the pending retirement of the frozen custard stand's owners once the season ends, sometime around Labor Day. The Stoffers are inviting potential buyers to pick up Wholly Cow Frozen Custard where they left off, in time for next spring.
In a July 21 post on the business' Facebook page, Jim and Jan Stoffer jointly announced their plan to close the business or sell it to a buyer interested in carrying on a tradition that now spans decades.
"After 31 wonderful seasons of The Wholly Cow, the owners Jim and Jan are retiring and hanging up their cow hats," the post says. "From the whole Stoffer family, it has been a pleasure serving Delafield, WI. With us retiring comes a unique opportunity. We are hopeful another custard enthusiast will consider taking the reins of Wholly Cow."
The term 'family business' is apropos for Wholly Cow
In 1992, it started out as a side business — Jim (now retired) was an electronic engineer at GE, which brought him to Wisconsin, and Jan is a corporate trainer at MRA. Starting the business had a dual purpose.
"Part of the motivation was to teach the children about work and business and to prepare them to attend college," the couple said in an email summarizing Wholly Cow's origins. "The idea of paying five college tuitions was daunting. We needed to supplement our income."
In an interview following their retirement announcement, Jim Stoffer said the strategy was decisively successful, with each of the kids working as shop managers at different points, providing them with summer work to help pay for college expenses, and then one by one leaving the custard-lined nest for careers of their own.
Susan, their youngest daughter, will effectively be their business' last manager. She recently completed her doctorate in physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, leading to career goals that are not likely to involve restaurant management.
"We said to her, 'Should you be dipping ice cream now, or is there a better thing for you to do?' As parents, we have to look at her interests," Jim said.
"We succeeded maybe too well," Jan added.
For Jan, whose non-restaurant job as an MRA corporate trainer has in recent years been customized to give her time to work in the shop, the reality that the family is moving on from Wholly Cow is "bittersweet."
Custard-loving couple made house a home for business
So the couple wanted a side gig. Fair enough. But why a custard stand? That was a matter of taste, or, as they put it, "Love at first bite!"
After moving into the house, they began a series of business-related decisions, turning the kids' lemonade stand on the porch of their Delafield business district home, 637 Main St., into a freezer-equipped venue. After securing the necessary city permits, the Stoffers christened Wholly Cow, which didn't take long to attract a long line of customers.
Jan credits Jim as the visionary for choosing the house suitable for the business. Jim credits Jan for pushing the concepts for the business, which thrived immediately in 1992.
"The first day we opened, we had lines in the street," Jan said.
Over the years, there were notable expansions, springing from a business plan approved by the city. The kitchen was enlarged, a frozen custard machine was installed to allow them to make their own chilled treats, and a grill and fryer were added to broaden the menu. The home increasingly became a business venue.
They turned their living room into indoor seating for Wholly Cow, eventually building a large living room addition on the north end of the house and raising the roof to accommodate bedrooms upstairs, freeing more space for the business downstairs.
Jim said the parking lot on one side of the house also gave Wholly Cow an advantage that not all of Delafield's Main Street businesses enjoy. "People could park, run in and get their food," he said.
But even when conveniences were lacking, such as in 2004 the city completely tore up Main Street to install underground utilities and rebuild the road, the customers kept coming.
"Both of these streets (Main and Mill) were shut down, and there were piles of dirt along the edge," Jim recalled. "I saw people pushing baby strollers up over the mud to get to Wholly Cow."
Will the next custard-loving owner please step forward
The Stoffers aren't blind to the trends in mom and pop custard shops. The pickings are getting slim as shop owners retire with no family members committing to another generation. Others simply go out of business or consolidate in the region.
They worry about LeDuc's in Wales, another popular spot that in recent years has seen a Culver's and a Baskin-Robbins open close by.
"I think it's a real loss every time we see one of these mom and pop places go out," Jan said. "We talk about it. We're sad about it."
But they exude confidence, or maybe just biased optimism, that the people who have expressed an interest in possibly taking over Wholly Cow see what they see in their business, both for its long-term success and unique, home-spun attributes.
"We were really so delighted that when we put the sign up in our window saying we're retiring, and also put it out on social media, we got a lot of response from people saying, 'What do want for it, we'd like to buy it, we want to keep this legacy going, you're an institution in town,'" Jan said. "I'm sure a lot of those people have a dream and might be able to actually follow through, but that's one of our top goals. We'd really like this to carry on because it has been part of Delafield for so long."
They're quick to say that the business has remained "a fun" atmosphere, resulting in some young employees who have worked with them for years, even during the COVID-19 pandemic. "There is something about handing someone a sundae and seeing their eyes light up," she added. "It's just very gratifying."
Perhaps it was an omen that within a week of their retirement announcement, a former longtime employee passing through the area just happened to stop by to say hello and get a jumbo cheeseburger, only to find out, to her dismay, that the family she worked for and the home she worked at has an uncertain future.
Ellen Bley, who worked at Wholly Cow each summer from 2007, when she was 15, to 2014, and who's now earning a master's degree, said she immediately felt a loss.
"I'm sad," Bley said. "I really like this place. It's a treasure. This is a great spot for the community and for kids growing up in the city of Delafield."
Contact Jim Riccioli at (262) 446-6635 or james.riccioli@jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter at @jariccioli.
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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Owners of Wholly Cow in Delafield look to sell frozen custard shop
