City of St. Cloud Approves Liquor License for New Downtown Bar

(KNSI) — Monday night, the St. Cloud City Council unanimously approved a liquor license for a new bar downtown.

The liquor license application approval for a project known as Stihl Wolf was one of the final steps in the process to get the bar up and running. The council already approved building permits for the owners to make interior modifications to space at 515 West St. Germain Street.

Stihl Wolf will be a full-service “pour only” bar, which means it will not serve food but patrons can order pizza from Polito’s, which is located next door. Travis Schertz, who co-owns both Polito’s and Stihl Wolf, spoke at last night’s meeting and explained that the bar would have a point of sale system, so if a customer comes in and orders a beer and they’re there for an hour and get hungry, “you can place the order with whoever is working behind the bar that night, and that ticket will actually print off in the pizza shop. [It] will get made and then we’re going to bring it over to the bar side.”

The outline of the business plan submitted by Schertz explained the bar would have a strict dress code and employ security staff on weekends. At the council meeting, Schertz said he and co-owner Eric Sjelin would “run a tight ship” and said they would be hands-on owners because they feel that the best downtowns “don’t have absentee owners. They have very engaged [owners] in their owner-operated businesses. We don’t want it to be a chain concept. We want it to be like an owner-operated business. We feel that that’s what the downtown needs to really help stimulate growth and get active ownership. Not something where somebody is not around and, you know, not that nobody doesn’t care about their business but if you’re there every day you care a lot more about it than if you’re living in Florida collecting a check.”

The liquor license application was recommended to be approved, which it was. The owners are planning to open by Labor Day.

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