When The Bluestem restaurant closed its doors March 21 amid the coronavirus pandemic, Chef Skyler Hoiland discovered a slower — more livable — pace from the previous 20-hour workdays.
On Thursday, July 23, Hoiland announced he would not reopen the South Highway 75 restaurant he started in 2012.
“I experienced a little bit of a normal life,” he said in an interview the following day. “I had tunnel vision with both places where I woke up every morning and did the same thing day after day.”
During the pandemic closure, Hoiland spent more time with his 4-year-old daughter and not as much time in the kitchen.
“I found having a normal life isn’t so bad after all,” he said.
In the 17 weeks that the restaurant has been closed, Hoiland focused attention on his Bluestem Catering Co. and began expanding the restaurant’s food experience for customers to eat at home.
Each Monday a new menu for “take and bake” meals is posted online for customers to order for a Thursday or Friday pickup at the company’s East Main Street location.
Hoiland said he’s recreating the “Sunday dinner” experience with pickup meals families enjoy at the table together.
“The idea is not to eat to gorge yourself but to evoke memories that the food tastes like what Mom and Grandma used to make,” he said.
“Everyone has to eat. Why not eat good food?”
During his professional chef training, Hoiland dreamed of operating his own restaurant that introduced entrees made with locally produced ingredients.
While operating The Bluestem for almost eight years, Hoiland found that many of his patrons preferred traditional Midwestern meat-and-potato meals.
His take-out meals offer those local favorites in addition to his signature made-from-scratch pasta that comes with instructions for reheating and Bluestem nachos where diners melt the cheese before serving.
All meals are fresh, never prepared from frozen.
Hoiland said the shift to catering allows him to easily plan for the number of prepared meals and assemble them in a matter of hours versus the restaurant where meals were individually made to the minute.
However, the shift also means he won’t receive immediate feedback from customers.
Eight years ago Hoiland brought the food evolution concept to Rock County where people wanted to know where their food originated and how it was prepared.
Closing the restaurant’s doors is a bittersweet experience for Hoiland, but keeping customers and workers safe was more important.
Hoiland shared his thoughts with customers in a final message that appears in today’s Star Herald.
“Restaurants already walk a fine line before any COVID-19 restrictions/effects, and given that no one knows how long the impacts of the pandemic will last or what the normal will be, we do not see a viable path forward,” Hoiland wrote.
Currently there are no plans for the building on Highway 75.
At the catering company Hoiland’s future plans are to create a retail area for customers to stop and buy lunches or suppers on their way home. He will continue to develop selections for sit-down family meals that were popular at The Bluestem restaurant.
“This place (the restaurant) is going away but Chef Skyler is still here,” he said.