This week’s episode of “WisBusiness: the Podcast” is with Paul Raasch, president of Zilli Hospitality in Waukesha.
The special events and catering business has been running corporate gatherings, weddings, fundraisers and galas for more than 50 years. Raasch discusses the company’s trajectory as well as broader trends in the industry, including workforce challenges.
“Things have changed a lot with the gig economy,” he said. “Many other retail establishments, or other industries, are paying ultra-competitive wages. So as our business is growing, that’s kind of been a challenge for us to find strong, competent staff to add to our workforce.”
Along with a growing trend toward sustainability in the hospitality industry, he points to rising demand for “unique and immersive” personalized events.
Raasch also discusses some of the ripple effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, which was massively disruptive to events hosting.
“We were in a complete shutdown mode; it was very scary, traumatic, and a lot of unknowns,” he said, adding “what we learned is that we have to obviously listen to our clients, be aware of our surroundings. We were always high on sanitation, but we had to take sanitation to a whole new level, and we’ve carried that through ever since.”
While the corporate side of the business dwindled for several years, there’s since been a comeback for weddings and other gatherings starting in 2023, driving Zilli Hospitality’s growth since then.
“People are saying, ‘Let’s entertain again, let’s get married, let’s have a lavish event’ … so we’ve seen kind of this resurgence of corporate entertaining, the weddings getting larger with guest counts and wanting to do different things and bring people back together,” Raasch said.
The company is planning a move into a new headquarters in Brookfield, bringing workers in from satellite offices to a larger space that includes a large warehouse and kitchen.
“Doubling or almost tripling of our current footprint is going to just allow us to become, you know, really efficient, it’s going to provide us a whole new way of catering, it’s going to increase our capacities to continue our growth pattern,” he said.
Listen to the podcast below, sponsored by UW-Madison:
