If you swing by Tischler’s Finer Foods from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday or from noon to 4 p.m. on Sunday, you’ll come across a trailer that offers just one product so far: the root beer of yesteryear.
Bill Moran, the owner of Blue Robin Root Beer, said the business was inspired by his first step into the workforce many years ago.
“My very first job was at a Dog n Suds, and if you’re not familiar with that, it’s an old, ’50s-style drive-in. They were very well-known for the root beer that they sold,” he told the Landmark. “One of my job duties was making the root beer every day, and I really enjoyed the taste of it. I thought it was really rich, and as I’ve gotten older, I haven’t been able to find an equivalent root beer in any bottled root beer or any restaurant that I go to.”
About a year ago, Moran said he was researching root beer when he came across a recipe that reminded him of the one he used at Dog n Suds. But the idea for Blue Robin didn’t solidify until he came across the trailer on Facebook Marketplace.
“I had built out a trailer a couple of years ago, just to put tools in. I saw this trailer on Marketplace, and, because I had experience with what I did with my trailer, I knew the quality of the workmanship that the guy had put into it. He was going to serve alcoholic beer out of it; well, the idea came to my mind to serve root beer out of it, and that’s what we did.”
While he’s the mastermind behind the concept and root beer recipe, Moran, who lives in Wheaton, doesn’t staff the truck himself. Instead, that job is done by retired Brookfield resident Tim Grace, a former work colleague of Moran’s neighbor.
“My initial reaction was enthusiasm. I’m retired, so I was getting rather bored not doing much of anything,” Grace said.
He said Moran brought him to the Dog n Suds location in Ingleside, an unincorporated community about 90 minutes northwest of Brookfield, to ask him to become the face of Blue Robin, a deal he readily accepted due to his own childhood love of root beer.
“I love root beer. While growing up, I never was a big soda fan at all,” he said. “Whenever my parents wanted to treat me to something sweet, more often than not, it was root beer. My dad was from northern Michigan, Manistee specifically, and that’s where I became aware of A&W Root Beer.”
Moran said the agreement with Tischler’s to allow Blue Robin to operate out of the parking lot arose through chance.
“I figured, if we can pick any town to be in, we may as well pick the town that [Grace] lives in because he’s going to be there every day,” Moran said. “We were looking for a parking spot to rent, and one of the places that we tried, just out of the blue, randomly, was Tischler’s. Linda [Tischler] was very excited about it.”
Moran and Grace said they plan to keep the trailer open during its posted hours through Oct. 31, after which they will close up shop for the winter before reopening in the spring.
“Nobody wants to stand in line waiting for root beer when it’s 20 degrees out, right?” Moran said. “Right now, we’re only doing the root beer. I wanted to get some closure, just focusing on the root beer recipe itself, but next year, we’ll probably do floats and a few other things as well.”
While the business has only been open for a couple weeks — based on Blue Robin’s Facebook posts, the first day of operation was Saturday, Sept. 13 — the owner and operator each said they’ve been pleased by the community reception.
“We still have people who are discovering us for the first time. They’re not really big on social media; they come to shop at Tischler’s, and then they see that we’re there, and they ask questions. ‘Oh, yeah, I’d love to have a root beer,’ so it’s been rather organic that way,” he said.
Moran said he had even been approached by a representative of the Brookfield Chamber of Commerce to participate in some Chamber events.
He said he’s excited to see how the business evolves as it continues to operate.
“It’s so new. We’re beta testing it, right? We’re seeing where it’s going to go,” he said.
