Keep it small, keep it simple, keep it personable

On the corner of Norwood and Victory Boulevard in Green Bay, a heaping batch of booyah slow-cooks in an 18-gallon kettle overnight so it’s ready to be served for lunch the next day. A beat-up rubber chicken with the words “squeeze me for service” dangles by its orange legs from a bungee cord above the register.

The shriek of this chicken signals another customer for Dan Nitka, owner and head cook of The Booyah Shed. His apron strung under the bulge of his belly is splattered with flour and grease splotches. Never trust a skinny cook, Nitka said jokingly.

Going on six years of business, the roughly 1,000-square-foot red, wooden shed just a mile down the road from Lambeau Field is exactly where Nitka plans on staying for the foreseeable future.

He said they’ve toyed with the idea of opening a second location but are just fine with the size and location of theirs as is.

“Keep it small, keep it simple, keep it personable,” Nitka said.

The familiar scent of a home cooked meal wafts from the kitchen upon entrance, and every bit of shelf space is occupied by pudgy, colorful chicken figurines.

“These things just show up,” Nitka said in reference to the tens of chickens Easter egged throughout the restaurant. “Not one of these chickens in here did I buy or pay for. All of a sudden they just show up. People come in and bring them and we give them a free meal or quart of booyah.”

Booyah, Nitka described, is chicken soup on steroids – and no two people make it alike. Each batch takes about 16-20 hours to cook thoroughly. Last year alone, Nitka said he made about 3,800 gallons of booyah.

Nitka’s very own recipe resulted from an accidental tweak on his uncle’s original recipe, and 20 years of perfecting it since. He began serving bowls of booyah out of his workshop to friends and colleagues when he worked as a machinist and eventually built his own mobile unit to park at the Farmer’s Market on Broadway beginning in 2010.

He sat with his back pressed into the metal frame of a chair and his hands crossed, resting atop his stomach, looking at the wall of frames containing photos of smiling customers and said: “These are the people that keep this place going.” He points out an elderly woman pictured in the center of the wall. Her name is Gloria, he said. He couldn’t help but grin talking about her.

“We got her a tiara and a shirt that says booyah queen,” Nitka said. “She wears her tiara every time she comes in. She’s got sandwiches named after her and we even bought her a giant mug with her name on it because she comes in and drinks so much iced tea. We only have to fill it once.”

Gloria Kaminecki has been going to The Booyah Shed almost every single day for the last six years. Kaminecki and her husband Paul, who has since passed, discovered The Booyah Shed together. She continues to make her daily four-minute commute to Nitka’s restaurant to carry on her husband’s memory and continue what was their favorite routine.

“He [Nitka] has always been friendly and very considerate,” Kaminecki said in awe. “Even at Christmas time when he’s making his Polish sausage, he’ll give me some… isn’t it wonderful? He treats me so good; he’s spoiling me rotten. It’s like a friendship, you know? You gotta just keep going back.”

She has become such a regular at the shed that when she is sick or out of town, and can’t make it in for a meal, she will call Nitka just to let him know she is okay.

“I have to let them know when I’m going out of town,” Kaminecki said. “Cause otherwise they miss me!” Kaminecki is a local celebrity in the community, adored by all — and knows it too.

She let out a deep sigh and said: “It’s like family. It’s just like having family. I can’t say enough good about them. I love The Booyah Shed. I just love it.”

Nitka’s right-hand woman Sherrie Fowle is much more than the smiling face who takes orders and flicks rubber toy chickens at first-time customers. She is in charge of payroll, preparing desserts and sauces from scratch, writing up cookbooks for Nitka and keeping him in line – which is the hardest part of her job, she said.

“I do the ice cream, the carrot cake, the ranch, the tartar,” Fowle said gleefully, referring to the chock-full menu near the entrance. “It is a scratch kitchen. I’ve been in restaurants for 30 some years, so I don’t know that I know how to cook, but you can train me and I can cook anything.”

Fowle has been working alongside Nitka since 2019, dishing bowls of booyah out of the mobile unit parked at the Farmer’s Market on Broadway. Fowle credits her husband for her acquaintance with Nitka. The two men joined a ski club together before Fowle met her now husband, Brian, who Nitka asked to help him in the mobile unit. Brian was unable to work one Saturday and sent Fowle to stand in for him.

“You can take his position any time,” Nitka told Fowle. And that’s just what she did. Now, five years later, Fowle jokes that she spends more time with Nitka than her own husband.

The bad jokes that are free of charge, the flying rubber chickens and the playful banter exchanged between Nitka and his staff, all come together to make this little shed a place of comfort food and community.

Nitka can’t express enough gratitude for the people that keep the place going.
“When people enjoy your food, and you can make them happy, that’s cool I think,” Nitka said. “And it doesn’t get much more local than us.” He paused to look around the restaurant he built from the ground up, grinned and said: “Or loco.”