Business: Kreger’s Brat & Sausage Haus
Address: 605 N. Ellsworth St., Naperville
Phone/website: 630-355-4418; www.kregersbrats.com
Owner: Bill Kreger, 64, of Naperville
Years in business: 11
What does your business do? “We make handmade sausage. That’s just since 2013. We were a corner grocery store until then,” Kreger said. “We tried to keep it open as a grocery store, then Kmart started selling groceries. Target. Menards. So, I shut down. I did not have this in mind.”
Why did you open the brat and sausage haus? “The city said I could have a business here. I talked with my sister Sue (Kreger), who had just lost her job at Lucent, and asked if she was interested in going into business with me. We’d make sausage, that was all. … We closed the grocery in January 2013 and rebranded in May 2013.
“We were open Thursday through Saturday. Then we went through COVID with the hours 11 to 2 on Friday and Saturday. Now it’s 10 to 3, just Friday and Saturday. I’m here working Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.”
What’s the history? “The store opened in February 1893. I worked here since I was 10, started full time in 1979. … We were downtown in 1893 on Washington (Street). … They moved here in 1926.”
Where do you find the meat? “I have a jobber who goes into the city (of Chicago) and buys the meat.”
What can we buy here? “Italian, Polish, Hungarian. I do a lot of flavors based on football teams. A Bears tastes like an Italian Beef. The Viking has blueberries and wild rice in it. … Our bratwurst has always been incredibly popular. We’ve been making thousands of pounds of bratwurst every year. We had a full-service meat counter. But we only made a half-dozen different varieties. I’ve made hundreds, but can only put 22 different varieties in the case.”
Where do you get ideas? “You go online and find out Pittsburgh has a lot of Italian neighborhoods. Italian sausage made sense, provolone cheese. You brainstorm. Chicago? Italian beef. The Packers? That one’s easy. Sauerkraut and cheddar cheese.”
How long does it take? “We cut, season and stuff the brats on Wednesday. I come back on Thursday, make all the flavors. By the end of the day Saturday, everything is pretty much gone.”
How much do you sell? “We average about 500 pounds a week. For the holidays, 1,000 pounds a week.”
What rolls do you use? “A frozen Gonnella product that we buy, proof and bake. They are fresh baked here every morning.”
Do you enjoy your job? “I do. This is it for 45 years. … My license plate says ‘BRAT KNG.’”
How do you advertise? “Word of mouth. We have new customers every week. People will have them at a party and hear somebody say, ‘There’s a place right here in Naperville.’ I’m also in Positively Naperville. … On a holiday — Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Labor Day — the line will be out the door.”
Charcoal or propane? “I’m still a charcoal guy. I’ve never owned a gas grill. … They really don’t taste the same.”
How did the pandemic impact your business? “We did great. We did curb-side pickup. They’d either call or e-mail. We took orders, run them out to the car. We had lines down the street.”
How many people work here? “Three full time. Me, my son Dan and a girl running the cash register.”
What do you like best? “The customers. A lot of them, (on) a first-name basis. A lot (of the new customers) will come in, eat, go home, come back, buy sausage to take home.”
What’s popular? “We have the “two piggy,” which is pulled pork on a brat or sausage and a “B and B,” which is brat and brisket.”
Any negatives to the job? “No. It’s beautiful.”
Do people have misconceptions? “They always ask, ‘How can you be open only two days a week?’ I go, ‘Well, the open part is easy. It’s the rest of the week getting everything prepared, making sure you have a full case.’ Thursday is a long day. I’m sometimes here from 9 to 9.”
Any quiet time? “I shut down from the Super Bowl until Easter. … We close for a week in July. Usually go fishing.”
Is there competition? “Not for what we do. Not everybody sells homemade, preservative-free sausage.”
Any future plans? “No expansion. My next birthday is 65.”
What’s your advice for someone starting a business? “Be prepared to work long hours. Have a quality product that you believe in.”
Steve Metsch is a freelance reporter for the Naperville Sun. If you know of a business you’d like to see profiled in Down to Business, contact him at metschmsfl@yahoo.com.
