Big Gig offers big jobs

The Summerfest grounds in Milwaukee offer a wide range of work opportunities for contractors. Photo courtesy of Summerfest/Milwaukee World Festival Inc.

With thousands of festival goers downing countless beers and sodas, it doesn’t take much to imagine what an early morning during Summerfest looks like to plumber Bob Zoulek.

“The bathrooms are in rough shape,” he said.

There undoubtedly will be clogged toilets, broken fixtures and plugged-up drains needing attention. But 30 years of working the grounds gives Zoulek confidence that the facilities can be brought back to tip-top shape by 11 a.m., when the Summerfest gates open for the day.

“Especially the morning after the first day, the place needs some tender, loving care,” he said.

Zoulek is the president of Mid City Plumbing and Heating Inc., Butler. The family company has tended to Summerfest’s less glamorous side for three decades.

“We’ve grown up with Summerfest,” he said.

Mid City is just one of many contractors that find a good portion of their spring and summer months consumed with the business end of the largest outdoor music festival in the United States and the many ethnic festivals that use the grounds all summer.

The work is constant for the Summerfest staff, and, starting in March, it spills over to a variety of cleaning, landscaping, plumbing, electrical, painting and other crews, contracted for the season through competitive bids.

Gearing up for the festival requires attention to “all kinds of tiny stuff,” said Robert Gosse, Summerfest’s facility manager and a licensed architect. There are thousands of light bulbs to check, filters to change in the HVAC systems, walls to spruce up with new coats of paint, cracks to fill and flower beds to turn into colorful works of beauty. There are water lines to be turned on, chlorinated and inspected.

The buildings on site, including the Marcus Amphitheater, are not heated in winter, which means they have to be sealed up tight and winterized for the cold months. Each spring they have to be brought to life.

Walking into the empty amphitheater at the season’s start is a bit of a chilling experience.

“It’s like a tomb in there,” Zoulek said.

— Jennifer Pfaff

Food for thought

Linville Architects strikes a balance between natural and concealed lighting to create a southwestern dining experience at the El Dorado Grill in Madison. Photo courtesy of LinvilleArchitects LLC, Zane Williams

There’s more than meets than eye when it comes to restaurant design.

That’s because everything that meets the eye in a restaurant plays some role in a patron coming back for seconds.

Tampering with the natural colors of food, for instance, can turn diners’ stomachs, even when the difference is so subtle they can’t explain their lack of appetite, said Jim Olson, vice president of Zimmerman Architectural Studios Recreation Studio, Milwaukee.

“Light is a huge thing,” he said. “The effect lighting creates affects how the food appears. Fluorescent lights lend a blue color to the food, and that’s not a good color.”

Ed Linville, principal at Linville Architects LLC, Madison, said a dramatic flair is necessary to a restaurant’s success, and that goes beyond avoiding taboo colors.

“Restaurants are really a theater — they are somewhat of a stage,” he said.

“The actors are the patrons, and the food is the play.”

And while the quality of the food can be changed nearly overnight, the scene set by the restaurant’s décor is much less moveable, he said.

— Jennifer Pfaff