The Inspiration that Led to Plae Bistro

When Jill Bassett was 15, her parents told her that if she wasn’t interested in playing sports, she needed to get a job. So she went to work at a restaurant because it is about the only industry that hires 15-year-olds.

Starting out at Gipper's Sports Bar & Grill on University Avenue in Green Bay, then moving on to several other area restaurants, her jobs put her through high school and college, and she has since been the proud owner of Plae Bistro in Bellevue. When Bassett envisioned the restaurant she wanted to open, there were a number of good supper clubs in the Green Bay area but not quite what she had in mind.

“I wanted something that could be fine dining, but not white tablecloth dining, more like the contemporary and new-age restaurants,” she explained. “I had traveled a lot and I would take notes and keep menus, so I had a big binder of menus from all the different states and countries I had visited.”

Bassett said the city of Calgary, Alberta, surprisingly, is her most inspirational, in that it had bistros that mirrored what she had in mind.

“I spent the whole week going in and out of the bistros, and I loved the concepts and that their styles were so much in line with what I had in mind. I also researched San Francisco, New York and Chicago. I wanted to bring big city to small Green Bay.”

Bassett took former Green Bay Packer Reggie White’s Urban Hope class and developed a business plan, and three months after graduating from the course, she had a lease at her current location in Bellevue. At that time the area, which is now covered in shops and professional buildings at the interchange of Wisconsin Hwy. 172 and Hoffman Road, was just farm fields, but the future looked prosperous.

The location is right on the hub of De Pere, Bellevue, Ledgeview and Allouez with a median household income of $85,000. “That was the target market for me, because we were going to be a little more upscale,” Bassett said.

Finding a location was one thing; finding the financing was another in tough economic times. Bassett recalls the local banks weren’t willing to take the risk on a young couple with kids and little equity in their home opening up a first restaurant, and a high-end one that.

“They’d tell me to come back in a couple years or tell me one in five restaurants fail in the first year,” she said. As in many cases, it was her mom and dad to the rescue.

They put up their own home as collateral and offered the 20 percent down payment. Then one bank had the confidence to help Bassett realize her dream, and its confidence was well-placed as she paid off a seven-year loan in 24 months.

Plae Bistro has always been a family affair. Bassett’s mother, Jeannie Cornelius, was a fixture at the restaurant for decades almost up until the time of her passing in 2018, and her father, Tony, also played a big part in the ongoing endeavor. Her two children worked in the restaurant through their childhood.

The next task was letting diners know there was a new spot in the city for dinner. In spite of village regulations that made it difficult to let diners know where they were, Bassett put her marketing degree to use, collecting an email address from every diner who came in.

“Now my email list is over 20,000 people,” she said.

Executive Chef Zack Zeihen was an English major at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.

“Thirty credits away from that, I said, nope, can’t see myself in that, so I quit and went to Le Cordon Bleu culinary school in Minneapolis.” After graduation, Zeihen became friends with a man who had worked opening restaurants around the country for chef Emeril Lagasse that fostered his love for Creole food. Zeihen moved to Green Bay in 2012 and has been the executive chef at Plae Bistro for about two years.

While striving to bring a big-city vibe to Plae Bistro, the restaurant sources much of the menu in its backyard. Bassett and Zeihen find that local vendors provide the highest quality products for their diners’ discerning taste.

“What keeps people coming in is our fresh fish and steaks, because people know where the meat comes from and it’s local,” said Zeihen. “They like that we prepare it all in-house,” he added. “We just got a new smoker, so we’ve been making smoked pastrami, brisket and our ribs have been a huge hit. We get our meat from local farms including Waseda Farms of Door County, Baycroft Wagyu beef of De Pere, and elk and bison from Navarino Valley Elk Ranch of Navarino.

“We try to be creative,” said Bassett. “We were the first one in Green Bay with our cheese bites in tomato bisque, now a lot of restaurants have it.” She listed pecan-crusted scallops, ahi tuna bites, and their salmon salad as other firsts in the market.

Plae Bistro owner Jill Bassett. Contributed photo

Zeihen said, “If I had to list one dish that’s a knock-out here, it’s our sea bass that we get from Honolulu. We get it fl own in three times a week. We get the whole side of the fish and cut it up ourselves, and we get it the day after it was caught, so it’s as fresh as can be for Wisconsin.”

Zeihen added that the daily specials give him inspiration as a chef. “We have about 10 features every day, and I like to do those and get feedback on them,” he said. “One way is through the Chef Room, where we have tables that seat six-to-12 people and we serve a six-course meal. Those are really fun. I use the customers in there as guinea pigs to test out new foods. You have to draw inspiration from yourself and try new things.” Zeihen’s experience with Lagasse’s style of cooking makes him favor Southern and Creole dishes.

“New Orleans is a big thing for me,” he added. “I visited down there a couple times and stole a couple menus,” he added with a chuckle. The pandemic has been a big challenge to Plae Bistro, as it has been for all businesses.

“I have 53 employees, 18 that are full time, who rely on the restaurant, and if I can’t be open, what would we do?” Bassett recalls. “We had to get very, very, very creative, especially when we could only do curbside delivery. We had to furlough about 60 percent of the staff, then our full-time people brainstormed about how we could make this work. People usually don’t think of fine dining to go.”

Zeihen explained one such innovation.

“We started ‘pick-3’ menus. Customers could choose an appetizer, a main course and a dessert. Our customers really liked that and kept coming back multiple times in a week just to help us out. It was like opening a different restaurant.”

Promotions Director Lauren Reidinger worked with another staff member to create “to-go drink kits.”

“It was a fun way to get people to enjoy Plae Bistro at home by making their own cocktails but feel like they’re still with us,” she explained.

The kits contained all the ingredients: the liquor ,mixer and anything else needed to mix up the cocktail at home. Bassett said they had been told that liquor stores were doing great in the pandemic because everyone was drinking at home.

“We did mojitos, bloody Mary’s, bottles of wine at $15 off a bottle and six-packs of mixed craft beers. By doing the meals and the drink kits, I was able to bring back 60 percent of my staff. Our customers have been amazing. When we would take food out their cars, they would give us a card, often with $50 or $100 tips, thanking us for being open and that they’re here to support us. It was awesome, it brought tears to my eyes.”

Zeihen and others play a big role in developing the menu. Bassett said she believes in creativity.

“I give the kitchen free rein to be creative,” she explained. “Three of them back there have culinary degrees, and I don’t want them to be stuck in a rut with me micromanaging.”

So, as fall is here, look for a heartier menu at Plae Bistro.

“This time of year, people like more game,” Bassett said. “We’ll bring in more elk and bison; we’ll have the cowboy ribeye; we’ll make heavier pastas; comfort foods with a twist.”

There’s a lot of creative drive bundled in the Plae Bistro staff, and that makes the future bright for one of the area’s most innovative restaurants.