Right, so then they had the Milky Way, and I think they had that for two years, three years, something like that. So your mom is sort of a no-nonsense person, it sounds like, right? She just forges forward and says, "It's on me." I can just imagine what (that last day) would be like, but at the time, I couldn't. He went to school in Germany, he was enrolled in one of the best and here, when he went to Globe Union, he worked there and they thought he was just great because he had very little waste, or whatever. Yeah, and he brought his tools home, so it had to be a terrible event for him to bring everything home (on his last day), you know. At the time, you think, "Well, he's sick. He took sick and it was such a sad thing, and I still remember it now. So then your mom is really running this business because your dad who was working in a machine shop. This is not to take anything away from Leon because he was clearly a good guy, he helped a lot of people out, but he also wanted people to open custard stands because he wanted to sell them machines. (PHOTO: Courtesy of Kopp's Frozen Custard)Īnd Leon obviously already had Leon's at that point. So she did that and then she was working there and she met a man by the name of Leon Schneider, and that's Leon's, okay? And so she said, you know, that she's working there and she'd like to open her own place. She was a Dutch woman, but you know Dutch and German isn't that far apart. So then she would go to work at Militzer and Mrs. You know, the custard stands used to close up. She was working at Militzer's, too, wasn't she? Was this concurrent? " whatever it was, some sort of partnership where she would run it and he would give her a percentage, or she would give him a percentage. And then he had the one on Port Washington Road where I am now.Īnd you know, so he's expanding and she went to work for him, and then he said, "Do you want to go in on some sort of. He was an aggressive guy, and he had the one on Bluemound Road. Right, she took it over, because he was expanding. Your mom took over at some point and managed the place, right? This is the Milky Way on 63rd and Capitol, right? Then when we buy our own house, we're going to get a duplex, and then we're going to rent it out." We're going to save some money and then we're going to buy our own house. They had the opportunity now to go to America and so they didn't want to squelch that, you know? So they said, "Well, if we got to work a couple extra hours, we're going to do it. His name was Art Richter, and he had the Milky Way.Īnd so she went to work for him, because they were always trying to make it better. You know, they all hung with Germans, right? Because they could speak it. Right, so that's where they met and that's where they hung out together, but then what happened, they had a friend. The one I remember is on Burleigh, 24th and Burleigh. My mom had some places on the East Side (of Downtown). Is that where your parents had settled, on that side of town? I can remember going to parties there they had like little social events. "You can speak German? I can speak German. You know, because they always kind of congregated. My dad came over here, and they met someplace, probably some German dance or something. People think ofĮlsa as being sort of a strong woman at a time when a lot of women didn't own and run restaurants. That's interesting that she had a strong female role model. My mom lived on a farm and her dad died, so her mother was the farmer, and she said, "I knew I never wanted to do that, so I wanted to get to America." But it was a little town, you know, and my mother came from another German town. You know my parents both came from Germany. Well, if you want to go all the way back, and maybe that leads you into the right direction. OnMilwaukee: Let’s talk a bit about how your mom got into the business and how then you got into it. We caught up with him to ask – among other things – about the history of Kopp's and Elsa's, other places he's considering opening beyond Milwaukee and if he ever thinks of opening a Kopp's Downtown.Įnjoy this Milwaukee Talks with Karl Kopp. Kopp has also owned restaurants in New York and Phoenix. Today, Kopp's has three custard stands around the area, in addition to Elsa's on the Park, across from Cathedral Square, which, nearly 40 years after it opened, remains a popular gathering spot Downtown. Many people wouldn't know him if he led them to their table one night at Elsa's – which could very well happen at the restaurant he named in honor of his mother.Įlsa Kopp opened the first Kopp's frozen custard stand on 60th Street and Appleton Avenue in 1951, and a local tradition began. Despite the fact that his surname is a household name and legendary in Milwaukee, Karl Kopp is not one to seek the limelight.
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