'THE PICKLE' NISSWA MUNICIPAL LIQUOR OPERATION IS STILL GOING STRONG TURNS 75

Ye Old Pickle Factory – much better known to locals and visitors alike as "The Pickle" — celebrates its 75th year in 2025.

Where did the unique name originate?

A former longtime manager of The Pickle said that on a busy day back in the mid 1970s, the phone kept ringing and a person who answered said, "Pickle Factory," so the caller would hang up, thinking it was a wrong number.

Terry Wallin, Pickle manager for the past 15 years and a full-time employee since 1991, has heard other stories as well regarding the city's municipal liquor operation's name:

A grandpa told his grandkids he was going to The Pickle Factory, and they thought he was going to buy pickles.

The bar was busy and someone said, “We're putting 'em in here like putting pickles in a jar.”

A city-owned operation, The Pickle Factory's profits are used every year to reduce the city’s general fund levy — which helps the city's taxpayers.

Almost every Minnesota town had a municipal liquor establishment in the 1950s to help generate income for cities. That's not so today.

The Pickle's busiest time of year is during the Fall Festival/ Smokin' Hot BBQ Challenge on a Saturday in mid-September each year. Other busy times are during the Nisswa City of Lights event, held the Friday after Thanksgiving; the Winter Jubilee held annually in mid-February; and Freedom Days held each July 3.

Morgan Watson Photography

Terry Wallin and Lani Thomsen are the faces of Ye Old Pickle Factory in Nisswa, both having worked there for nearly 40 years.

Historical Tidbits

From “Centennial History of Nisswa,” by Earl C. Leslie, 1986:

• Nisswa's population in 1950, when Ye Old Pickle Factory was founded, was 578.

• The fr ame municipal liquor store dubbed “The Pickle” was the old Murray chicken coop that was directly west of the new city hall built in 1964.

• In June 197 1, Marvin Zimmerman purchased the old frame municipal liquor store and moved it southwest of town. A new building was erected in its place, this one made of stone, concrete and steel.

From a June 15, 2000, Lake Country Echo story on The Pickle Factory's 50th anniversary:

• The Spotlite was a combination Nisswa city-run liquor store and lounge, and a dance hall. The municipal operation was in the front, and the dance hall in the back was operated separately but cooperatively by Larry Bond.

• Pickle pro fits bought a squad car and land for the city park department. Money was earmarked for city sewer operations and the city’s general fund to provide direct tax relief to property owners.

• “Anything Pickle” was the theme of the June 2000 parade.