There was 'no place like' Bill's Fine Food | Wausau restaurants our readers miss most
WAUSAU − Earlier this year, we asked readers which former restaurants they missed most in the Wausau area. Readers suggested almost 40 restaurants that they miss in the community. Over the next several weeks, we will highlight the top six restaurants our readers miss most.
We recently featured The Wright Place on 6that No. 6.
No. 5: Bill’s Fine Food
There are three things that immediately come to mind for people who remember dining at Bill's Fine Food & Cocktail Lounge in Wausau: the homestyle food, the trophy muskie mounts that hung on the walls and the trout pond in front of the restaurant
"I went there for years to enjoy the wonderful food and good people," one reader shared. "There is no place like it."
"I also miss Bill's Fine Food, both for the food that was served and the novelty of the fish kept in the outdoor pond in front of it," wrote another.
Bill and Ethel Hoeft were married in 1941 and together they established Bill's Fine Food from a neighborhood tavern at 932 S. Third Ave., on Wausau's west side in 1946. The business started as a tavern with limited kitchen facilities and at the time served soup, sandwiches and plate lunches, and fish fries on Fridays. There were six employees at the time. Bill and Ethel found it necessary to expand their business three times over the years, according to Wausau Daily Herald archives.
The restaurant and lounge offered a complete menu and had seating for up to 135 people. The Rainbow Room was available for private parties.
The food was prepared by chefs who specialized in home bakery, homemade soups and homestyle luncheons along with a variety of sandwiches. It featured a complete dinner menu including: barbecued ribs, U.S. Choice steaks, African lobster tail and Rocky Mountain rainbow trout.
Ads that appeared in the Daily Herald boasted a Friday menu that included walleye pike, lake perch, English battered fish and potato pancakes with eggs or sausage. Their Sunday menu featured roast duck with wild rice dressing, roast chicken with dressing, roast sirloin with tender carrots and Hawaiian baked ham. They also offered special menus for all the holidays.
Bill, an avid fisherman, was known to patrons and the community as "Musky Bill." Ten muskies were mounted and hung in the restaurant for everyone to enjoy. Bill was also the founder and long-time president of Bill's Musky Club, and in 1982, he was one of the first anglers enshrined in the Fresh Water Fishing Hall of Fame at Hayward as a "Legendary Angler."
The restaurant also had a trout pound landscaped outside the dining room entrance, that "parents took their children and grandparents took their grandchildren to see live trout. ... (You) looked down at the pool of water in front of the restaurant and marveled at the live fish and the opportunity to feed them," a Daily Herald columnist wrote.
The trout pond was later discontinued because of theft of the trout and vandalism.
Many meetings and parties were held there through the years. “The restaurant and lounge was so much a part of Wausau life,” the columnist wrote.
Bill and Ethel retired in 1968 due to health problems, and Bill's nephew Butch Oravez and his wife Peggy took over the family business. Butch had worked for his uncle since 1951, and Peggy joined the business after they were married.
Butch and Peggy purchased the restaurant in 1976 and ran it until 1995.
An October 1995 ad that ran in the Daily Herald announced the restaurant was under new ownership and that it would begin serving again on Oct. 30, 1995. Another ad in December 1999 announced yet another ownership change and the lounge was renamed to Forte’s Lounge.
However, it was only a short time later that the tavern and restaurant went out of business on May 31, 2000, amid financial trouble.
The space opened as Paradox, Wausau's first Hmong-owned bar and restaurant on March 1, 2002. It had been vacant since Bill's Fine Food closed. Ownership eventually changed and the bar faced its share of issues with the city after several fights and other disturbances to which police were called. It closed in early February 2015.
In late February 2015, Third Avenue Café opened in the space, and the new business reinvented itself as a restaurant and added to its menu.
In February 2017, Hmong Eggroll, an Asian-fusion restaurant serving eggrolls, pho and more, relocated to 932 S. Third Ave. They continue to operate at the space.
Holiday shopping: Looking to shop local this holiday season? Take your gift list to these Wausau area stores.
More local business news: The Breakfast Bear restaurant in Rib Mountain sets opening date
Editor Jamie Rokus can be contacted at jrokus@gannett.com or follow her on Twitter at @Jamie_Rokus.
This article originally appeared on Stevens Point Journal: There was 'no place like' Bill's Fine Food restaurant in Wausau
