Curds

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There’s no other bar and grill in Wisconsin that utilizes this setup.

And, of course, Dinges wasn’t satisfied with food trucks and trailers alone. He was sure that he could sell them to bars and restaurants as well.

“I had a little white school bus and put a little Presto pot FryDaddy in it, with hot grease, and I’d fry an order and walk into a business and ask who was in charge of purchasing food,” Dinges said. He fried the curds right in their parking lot, leaving a business card and a flyer with the fresh cheese curds. Dinges states that he never went to college and just made it work, pounding the pavement and doing guerrilla marketing to get his name out there.

“It like punched them in the face,” Dinges recalled of business owners trying his cheese curds for the first time. He lets the product speak for itself.

The curd business really started to take off in 2019.

“Mom thought I was crazy just like my dad, taking big risks and big payoffs,” Dinges said. “When I bought the bar from her I told her ‘I can always erase your name on the sign out there,’” he laughed. “My mom and dad built the foundation and put the walls up, and I ended up putting the roof on the place,” he said, fully understanding that while his parents made it happen, his out-ofthe- box thinking helped Ed and Sharon’s flourish.

That is until COVID-19 blindsided Dinges along with everyone else.

“My sales dropped like a rock,” he said.

The account that typically took 100 pounds of curds each week plummeted down to just 16, and his top-tier equipment came with top-tier payments.

“My dad used to be a Golden Glove boxer back in the 60's and, if you fall down and get hit in the face, you get back up and punch them back,” Dinges said.

And that’s exactly what he did. Though his bank offered to let Dinges strictly make payments towards the interest balance, that just wasn’t in his nature. Instead, he vowed to pay it off early. While the bank president knew that Dinges was determined, he was skeptical about an early payoff and told Dinges that if he paid off his loan early, the president would be his “teller girl.”

Dinges recalls robbing Peter to pay Paul just to keep the business operating. He went two months without producing curds while making those payments, taking a loss on both product and liquid nitrogen, which evaporates rapidly.

Regardless, Dinges paid off that loan early, and true to form, commissioned a trumpeter and found a briefcase for just the occasion. He even had cookies custom made.

“When I wrote that check, it was like the weight of the world was off of me. This product was the biggest risk I ever took on. I told people it was literally jumping out of an airplane without a parachute and landing on both of your feet alive,” Dinges said.

Dinges and his crew are still in Ed and Sharon’s slinging chicken and cheese curds. He could have a bigger curd operation if he collaborated with a distributor, but Dinges likes to keep it small.

“They always say ‘find a hobby and get paid for it.’ That’s the way I look at it; life’s all about perspective,” he said.

Dinges and his brothers lost their mother in 2023. Though she’s no longer sitting on her stool and the place has seen quite a few upgrades, the restaurant hasn’t lost its old-school charm. In fact, Ed and Sharon’s celebrated 41 years of business this May.

You’ll find Dinges in his food truck this summer in downtown Merrill each Thursday between 11 a.m. and 1:30 p.m., rain or shine. He’ll also be bringing the flavor at events like the Merrill rodeo.

Or you can check out Ed and Sharon’s Restaurant and Catering. You can’t miss it, it’s the place with the giant chicken standing at attention in the parking lot and holding a mug of root beer. The chicken’s name is Eddie.

SIGNATURE RECIPE - There’s nothing better than cheese curds made with Bill Dinges’ family recipe and his cutting-edge liquid nitrogen freeze tunnel.

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