Today we’d like to introduce you to Tiffany Moskal Brigitte Ellis.
Hi Tiffany Moskal, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
Tiffany – The entire Ellis family was born and raised in the North West Suburbs of Chicago. My parents both grew up and worked majority of of their younger years in the restaurant industry. My mom’s side owned a Italian deli specializing in the most delicious subs. My dad worked in a steak house where he learned all about cutting meat. It was natural that when my parents opened their first restaurant in Illinois near our home town that my older sister, Sammie, and I started working there from a pretty young age. Growing up in a restaurant is quite the experience and one that I always loved. I learned so much from working at a young age – work ethic, social skills, managing money, and so much more. I continued to work in restaurants until I went off to college. I went to college at University of Concordia in Mequon, Wisconsin with a dual major in Secondary Education and Mathematics. I taught Algebra 2 for two years at Wauwatosa West High School in Wisconsin before relocating to Northern Minnesota. Even though I was not born and raised in the Marcell area, I feel like I was! We have had property in the area since the early 60s. My dad vacationed here as a baby and he continued to the tradition. We would make the 9 hour drive to spend time at the cabin any chance we could. When my parents decided to “retire” to “the cabin” in the winter of 2018 I immediately knew I wanted to move to Marcell too! Thankfully, my now husband, Austin loved the life style up North and wanted to move to. I had applied for a teaching job in Grand Rapids and was bummed that I didn’t get the job. I will never forgot the moment that I was standing in the copy room of Wauwatosa West High School and I saw “Deer River, MN” calling my phone. It was the principal from Deer River High School asking me to apply for their math opening for the following school year. He had gotten my contact info from Grand Rapids, who recommended me for the job. I was so excited! I didn’t even know where Deer River was at the time and ended up accepting the position without even meeting any staff in person or seeing the school. My husband and I were just so excited that we were going to be able to move. I ended up teaching math in Deer River for 4 years before leaving to teach in Blackduck for a year. During my year in Blackduck that is when the Timberwolf Inn was rumored to be for sale. With all my families background in the restaurant industry, we had always joked about buying the restaurant. We never truly thought it would ever come up for sale again. I’ll never forget that moment – sitting in the bar at the Timberwolf with my dad (Mike Ellis), my mom (Brigitte Ellis), and husband (Austin Moskal) when my dad said “I think the bar is for sale” and immediately my dad and I knew we should buy it. We truly felt like we had all the people we needed to make the place run, the capability, the ideas, and determination to continue to provide the Northwoods with an amazing place to stay and eat. The Timberwolf is a true staple in the area and we wanted to make sure that it continued to thrive. That brings us to today… Going into our 3rd summer of owning the restaurant and it has been quite the adventure!
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The road to owning a restaurant is never smooth and then add 12 motel rooms to that! The restaurant side of things is easy, but running a motel is something that we did not have experience with. Being in the middle of the woods with slow internet, little cell service, and cable that doesn’t work when the wind picks up can lead to frustrated guests. Every day is something new when it comes to the motel rooms. We have a lot of plans for the future that include updating the bathrooms, lighting, and furniture in all the rooms.
Another challenge we have faced is taking on an old business. May items within the restaurant were original or at their life expectancy when we took over. Within the first weeks and months we battled with broken kitchen equipment. I think during those first few months every cooler and freezer went down at least once. We also replaced majority of the kitchen equipment.
The hardest challenge, in my opinion, was buying an existing business. When you start something completely new you can 100% make it your own with out upsetting people. People also seem more supportive. However, when you buy something that originated in 1995 it almost felt like there was this unwritten rule that everything needed to stay the same. How do you make something your own when it’s already so established and people have certain expectations? I honestly think it would have been easier to start from scratch some times! It was definitely a huge change with ownership changing and then we went and changed the menu. I think people were expecting us to come in and leave everything the same, but we wanted to introduce our specialities and our homemade dishes and provide the area with delicious food,
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
My mom, Brigitte, mainly works in the kitchen during the week. She prepares all our homemade sauces, dressings, lasagna, raviolis, meatballs, and so much more. When we say homemade, we mean it! We are making every sauce and dressing from scratch! There is no soup base or packets of anything involved in our cooking. We take a lot of pride in the fact that the sauces, soups, and dressings we make are made fresh. We have also recently made the switch so that all our sauces and soups are gluten free!
My mom is very passionate about her homemade cheesecakes. I would say we are very well known for it! She has been making them for over 20 years and makes every flavor imaginable. One of the best flavors is Cherry using the cherries from the trees in back yard of the Timberwolf Inn. We hope to harvest enough this summer to make more cheesecakes and maybe even an ice cream with the help of Borealis Creamery from Grand Rapids, Minnesota.
We serve only USDA Prime Top Sirloin from our local provider and USDA Choice Black Angus Beef from one of the most prestigious Black Angus farms in the US. My dad, Mike, hand cuts all our steaks and takes a lot of pride in his meat cutting abilities. Our 14 oz hand cut Ribeye is out of this world.
My sister Sammie is truly best mixologist in Itasca county (at least I think so)! The cocktails she creates are delicious, refreshing, and one of a kind. She created all these speciality White Russians this past winter and they are truly a work of art. I like to say they contain everything but the kitchen sink, but the flavors are incredible.
I spend majority of time working the front of house at the restaurant and managing our social media. I’m the one doing a lot of the stuff behind the scenes, taking photos, and managing our all our platforms. I think one thing that sets us a part from a lot of the other businesses in the area is that the photos we post of food is actually photos of OUR food! You will not find a stock image from the internet anywhere on our social media pages or website. We advertise exactly what we are selling!
Do you any memories from childhood that you can share with us?
My mom, Brigitte, grew up in a very large Italian family and her favorite memory wasnspending time with her grandma (we called her Nonnie). She taught my mom how to crochet (and then my mom taught me) at a very young age. My mom would spent so much time with her mom and Nonnie cooking. Especially making homemade raviolis. This is where my mom learned to make raviolis from scratch!
My favorite childhood memories are all the trips we took to the cabin! We spent our summers boating, tubing, and water skiing on Turtle Lake, eating all you can eat crab legs at Arcadia, picking wild raspberries, and hanging on the lake. In the winter we would snowmobile and make incredible sledding hills.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.timberwolfinn.com/
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/timberwolf.inn
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TimberwolfInn/
- Yelp: Timberwolf inn
