Hole In One

To get just an inkling of what makes Woodlake Market in the Village of Kohler, Wis. unique, take a look at the wood plank flooring in produce and the other perishables departments.

Sure, lots of supermarkets have “wooden” floors in their produce departments—faux wood linoleum is all the rage in contemporary designer circles, after all—but at Woodlake Market the flooring is actual wood, and it comes with a rich history. The three-inch slats are preserved from the old gymnasium floor of the former Recreation Hall of The American Club, the building across the street (now the Kohler Design Center) where the immigrant workers of the Kohler Co., the village’s namesake manufacturer of plumbing supplies, generators and motors, played basketball, exercised and attended ballroom dances. 

When the Recreation Hall closed in the 1980s, company CEO Herb Kohler had the floor moved over to the new company-owned supermarket he was building.

“We can’t ever finish the floor,” says Gerald Allison, business manager for Woodlake Market and KOHLER Original Recipe Chocolates. “We can’t ever sand it. Mr. Kohler is very clear that he wants it preserved in its natural state. As you see it now is how it was. We wash it every night and that helps maintain it. The nice thing is the aging of it continues to give it its character.”

Opened in 1986, Woodlake Market anchors The Shops at Woodlake, part of Kohler Co.’s resort division that also includes The American Club hotel and the world-renowned Blackwolf Run and Whistling Straights golf courses.

“The whole reason that the store exists is because Mr. Kohler wanted to basically have a village market, something for the people who lived in the Village. Not just for the Kohler employees, but the other residents as well,” Allison says.

Today, Woodlake Market not only serves those populations, but also draws from a much wider radius. It is the “go to” supermarket in surrounding Sheboygan County for gourmet, perishables, artisan bread, premium alcoholic beverages, natural, organic and local products. And thanks to Blackwolf Run and Whistling Straights, on weekends during the May to November “high season” it draws foodies from as far away as Chicago.

“You can tell someone is from Chicago by the amount of New Glarus beer they have in their shopping cart,” Allison says of the local brew sold only in Wisconsin. “Every Saturday there is going to be at least one person who fills up an entire shopping cart with New Glarus beer.” One even bought all of the manufacturer-supplied accouterments of a New Glarus in-store display, including an inflatable cow and cheeseheads, because he was so infatuated with the product, Allison notes.

One visit to Woodlake Market and it is easy to see why it draws shoppers from near and far. 

“What makes us different is that we try to focus on the customer experience,” Allison says. “You’re not coming here to get the cheapest can of beans. You can get a can of beans at Walmart, Pick ‘n Save or Piggly Wiggly. We sell that, but that’s not what we’re going after. We’re going after the customer that wants to have a unique experience walking through the store. They can walk up to any of our service cases, point to a product and say, ‘I want that because it’s amazing.’”

Brewed Awakening 

At Woodlake Market, the customer experience starts in the entrance vestibule where shoppers are in for a Brewed Awakening. That’s the quirky name given to the store’s coffee shop, which uses coffees from Colectivo out of Milwaukee for its house grinds. 

“Brewed Awakening has been very popular, especially amongst Kohler associates. We have a line out the door for everyone wanting to get their coffee before work,” Allison says. Brewed Awakening’s baristas even know customers by name and have their preferred drink ready for them by the time they reach the counter, he says.  Another novel feature is an in-store cardholder allowing Brewed Awakening customers to leave their frequent drink punch cards in the store. TV news legend Barbara Walters was so impressed by it that she signed up for a card when she visited the resort last year, Allison says.

After passing Brewed Awakening, shoppers move through the sliding automatic door into the store proper where, to their right, they encounter a mouthwatering assortment of proprietary The Art of KOHLER Original Recipe Chocolates.   

Chocolates are a relatively new business for Kohler, launched in 2007 when Herb Kohler challenged the chefs at The American Club to create a new version of his favorite candy, the chocolate turtle. “They went through 100 different recipes before he found one that he truly enjoyed and said ‘This is it.’ That is how KOHLER Chocolates was essentially born,” Allison says.

Handcrafted at the Craverie Chocolatier Café down the other end of The Shops at Woodlake, today the selection numbers more than two dozen SKUs and includes the signature Original Butter Terrapins (turtles), chocolate bars, candy bars, toffee bar trail mix and the latest entrant Caffé & Cream, Kohler’s take on tiramisu.     

Woodlake Market’s real first impression is its produce department, to the left and straight in front of the door, where the emphasis is on local and organic.

“Local to us is different than what local might mean to a chain store,” Allison says. “We’re talking hyper-local here. We know the farmers by name. There are probably 15 farmers within a 10-mile radius that come in here in the summer that we buy our produce from. It is fresh from the field. They are picking it that morning and bringing it to us by mid-morning.”

Year-round lettuces are sourced a couple of miles away in Sheboygan at Lake Orchard Farm Aquaponics, where they are a symbiotic byproduct of the company’s fresh tilapia, which is found in the seafood case.  

Lake Orchard Farm’s lettuce is also the hallmark of the salad bar, which at the start of the new year also went the local and organic route.

“We do a very brisk amount of business with their products,” says David Bugni, assistant store manager. “Lake Orchard Farm has been a great addition to the family of products that we have here.”

Allison adds, “This has been so popular since we relaunched it. We’ve seen an immediate spike in sales. I’ve been getting emails like crazy about how much people like it.”   

“Our produce department is unique in that about 80 to 90 percent of it is organic,” Allison says. “We do have some conventional items, simply because some of our customers ask for that, but most of the product is organic.”    

Produce leads into a small floral and gift department where the focus is on unusual items not found in the run of the mill chain stores.

Next to floral is the large Wisconsin cheese island, with an emphasis on local and smaller cheese makers, like Sartori out of neighboring Plymouth.

“Wisconsin cheese is huge for us,” Allison says. “It amazes me how much of it we sell, especially on the weekend when we have the tourists from The Club shopping here. It is not uncommon for people to come in and spend $50 or $75 just on cheese. It just blows my mind.”

Near the salad bar is the Atrium Café, a small seating area underneath a glass dome where shoppers can dine on their in-store purchases.

“At breakfast time we have regulars that always come in and get their coffee and breakfast. It is packed and you can’t find a seat,” Allison says.

They may grab a Grebe’s Bakery cruller brought in from Milwaukee or one of Woodland Market’s signature made-from-scratch muffins from the bakery department. 

But in the bakery, the “piéce de résistance” is the collection of artisan breads sold under The KITCHENS of KOHLER label and made by the acclaimed pastry chefs in The American Club’s kitchen. 

“Our KOHLER breads are really our driving factor,” Bugni says, adding that each bread has a number corresponding to the time it was placed on the shelf. After 24 hours, if not sold it is pulled and made into croutons or garlic rounds. “This is the primary bread served at the Destination Kohler campus. Everything is made from scratch. It takes two to three days to go through the whole process from start to baking,” he says.

Perched atop the bakery case is one more example of the care, effort, love and detail that the Woodlake Market crew put into their operation in the form of a replica of Woodlake Market’s signature wooden exterior sign. Done in 100 percent chocolate by Josh Johnson, head pastry chef at The American Club, in honor of the store’s 30th anniversary last year, it is meticulous in its detail—even the screws and the threading on the bolts is done in chocolate. 

“We had talked to Mr. Kohler about updating the sign, maybe with some neon to give it a modern feel,” Allison says. “He said ‘absolutely not. It has character to it.’”

Woodlake Market’s deli department is also full of character.

“We are a scratch deli,” Allison says. “About 95 percent of our products are made internally, all of our soups, salads, entrées, take-and-bake pizzas—even the pizza crust is made from scratch in the pastry kitchen at The American Club.”

Everything is made without preservatives, and the signature prepared foods fly out the door. Chicken Saltimbocca is a popular seller, and Woodlake Market sells through 250 to 300 pounds of its grilled chicken breast a week. Grilled salmon is another fast-mover for shoppers who do not have time to buy raw fish at the service seafood case.

Seafood is supplied by the Houmann’s division of Supreme Lobster, Fortune Fish and Sea 2 Table. 

“Sea 2 Table is a direct shipper from the docks,” Bugni says. “My order that will come in tomorrow will have been out of the water for less than 24 hours. There’s no middleman. The fishermen are doing all of the harvesting themselves and I get a report of who the fisherman was and the name of his boat so I can tell my customers exactly who caught it.”

More than half of the adjacent service meat case is devoted to prepared entrées. “Our customers want to be able to buy prepared,” Allison says. “I tell them they can look like a hero without having to do a whole lot. They basically have to just turn the oven on and throw it in. And you can’t buy all of the ingredients and make it for less than what you are going to pay for buying it already done.”

The counter has proven so popular management is contemplating shrinking the self-service case, or maybe doing away with it altogether.   

Beef is primarily sourced from Meats by Linz out of Chicago. “We are the only grocer that they supply. That is our featured product,” Allison says. Store officials visited the company’s plant and farm, and Allison notes that even the floors in the barn were clean enough to eat off of. 

Pork is sourced from Niman Ranch and Golden Bear Farm, a mom and pop operator in Kiel, Wis. that feeds its pigs barley, field peas, kelp, molasses and seasonal fresh fruits and vegetables. “They are the only non-corn fed pork producer that raises a Berkshire,” Bugni says. “They eat a diet heavy on apples. It makes the meat sweeter.”   

During the winter months, Woodlake Market sells Golden Bear Farm pork frozen from upright cases that lead into the dairy department, where the areas top major milk brands, like Kemps and Deans, are eschewed in favor of local producers, like Sassy Cow, based in Columbus, Wis., and Lamar’s and Clover Meadows, both packaged in old-fashioned for-deposit glass bottles. 

“Clover Meadows is basically the closest thing you can get to raw milk,” Bugni says. “It is just real heavy, heavy cream, with an absolute phenomenal flavor. Many people who are lactose intolerant can drink it.”

The walls above the department are decorated with almost life size two-dimensional wooden cows. 

“Those cows are part of the original design of the store,” Bugni says. “They were designed to create a fun atmosphere that was inviting, especially to the children.”

Shrunken Grocery

Woodlake Market had its last major remodel in 2015 when LED lighting was installed throughout the grocery section.

“When we put in the new lighting we changed the profile of these aisles,” Allison says. Pointing to a support pillar pole in the middle of the liquor department he says, “This grocery aisle used to go as far as that pole. We tore all of that out and put all of our wine and spirits over there because we had that spread throughout the entire store. It was confusing for our customers and we wanted to make it a single destination. We have one of the better wine and spirits selections in the area.” 

Woodlake Market has become known for its selection.

“Craft spirits is such a big thing right now and we’re going to make sure that we stay on top of it,” Allison says. “We have about 20 feet of whiskey, the best selection in the area, which means we have a lot of SKUs. We are being very particular in which ones we are selecting. We try to make a point of getting unique things.” 

While Woodlake Market still stocks a broad selection of grocery, most of the assortment has been turned over to local, artisan and gourmet products that cannot be found in competing stores.

“In our soup section, we only have four-feet of Campbell’s Soup,” Allison notes. “We shrunk that down by eight feet. We used to have 12-feet, but it just wasn’t what our customers wanted.”

“Basically, what we did was shorten down the aisles to 40 feet and got rid of a lot of the national brands because we are focusing more on the specialty and local products,” Bugni says.

“One thing that has been a great success for us is that in our baby section we got rid of anything that was not an organic/natural product,” Bugni says. “We have Seventh Generation diapers and have not sold Pampers, Luvs or Huggies in over two years. We’ve actually seen our sales increase.”

A new marketing effort is with Rosie, the Ithaca, N.Y.-based home shopping service. Launched just before Thanksgiving, the partnership is off to a good start; on a recent winter afternoon a store associate was fulfilling four full orders that were received that day. 

“It has been very well received,” Allison says. “We do both curbside carryout and delivery. Delivery has been more popular, by about three to one, but we’re getting several orders a day now.”

Bring Back Bag

Just about every aspect of shopping at Woodlake Market is distinctive—even its bags.

“One of the things we like to do is set ourselves apart in the area,” Allison says. “We used to have bags that were very chintzy and just said ‘thank you’ on them. They weren’t representative of our brand and what we wanted to accomplish. So the Kohler communications team and us worked very closely on coming up with a new bag.”

The end result was a product from Bring Back Bag, a manufacturer based in Oroville, Calif. “These bags are 100 percent recycled, 100 percent recyclable, and 100 times reusable. We give 7-cents back each time they are reused and we are the only store in the market with them. We are starting to see them around the community as the reusable bag of choice.”

While the bags used at Woodlake Market may have changed, the store’s level of quality, freshness and service will never go out of style.

“That’s one of Kohler Co.’s guiding principles. Business may change, customers may change, prices may change and markets may change, but any one of our businesses are going to maintain that single level of quality, including Woodlake Market,” Allison says.