Our Lives Magazine: Smalltown Flare by Stacy Harbaugh

Matt Trotter has built an inspired arts ecosystem in Princeton, Wisconsin with Horseradish Kitchen, his unique shop-dine-stay experience.

Originally published in Sept/Oct 2022 edition of OUR LIVES MAGAZINE: Madison’s LGBT&XYZ Magazine.

WITH A LOCALLY FOCUSED food philosophy, an artistic style, and a sense of history of both his family and hometown, Matt Trotter is building a welcoming community in Princeton, located in Green Lake County.

Matt owns Horseradish Kitchen + Market, the restaurant, retail shop, and lodging anchored at 505 W. Water Street. A new venture, Parlor Hotel, is due to open this spring as a seven-room boutique hotel nearby. Working with staff, friends, investors, and a supportive family who share his vision, Matt uses his background in the arts to create a space where people can have experiences beyond what’s on the food menu.

Horseradish’s roots are in his family’s history.

“My family is from the area,” said Matt. “My great grandparents lived here in the 30s and had their own business. They created Muk Luks, the iconic socks, and were successful, especially in the 50s and 60s. I basically grew up in the sock factory. In my teens, Water Street in Princeton started taking off. There was new blood and new faces, people from cities opening shops. A lot of my interests started there. There was a plant store that started my obsession with plants. A good coffee shop, retail, and merchandising. It was a cool backdrop for a teen who was unsure of his future. But there were shop owners who created a nurturing environment, including a gay restaurant owner I worked for. I saw him as a mentor, and we’re still friends today.”

Facade of Horseradish Kitchen + Market.

For school, Matt went from the town of 1200 people to Milwaukee, where he spent seven years studying art. He worked in Sheboygan for a bit. But back home, his parents owned a building downtown that had space available. Matt’s drive to start his own business in retail motivated him to make the hour-and-a-half commute to Princeton while working full time in Sheboygan to get his new company started. That’s how the Teak & Soxy shop was born.

“Teak & Soxy was named after these horses that lived behind the sock factory,” he said. “The horses would occasionally get out of their pens and wander around downtown. So we named the shop after the horses who had no boundaries and wanted to be downtown. I was always interested in design, packaging, and makers. I love anything vintage. That space was my canvas for a shop. I loved creating a visual space for all these products.”

Matt Trotter by Hannabarger Photo.

Two years later, Matt was inspired by the movie Chef, and decided to start a food truck. He admits that the film made the food truck business seem easier than in real life. He worked with his then-partner to find a truck on Craigslist. They paid $1,000 for the vehicle that looked abandoned in a field overgrown with weeds. The vision kept them motivated to restore the truck and park it in front of the retail shop to serve food and drinks that offered something different to diners downtown. At the time, it was so innovative that the city didn’t quite have permit rules in place for them to operate.

“I wanted to serve food on the weekends that was a little healthier and a little more exciting,” said Matt. “I knew a baker who did artisan bread and pastries, good growers in the area, and I worked with a friend, my aunt, and my mother to put together a food menu. Then we needed drinks, so we got a liquor license and built an enclosed, tropical beer garden full of plants around the food truck. It was a cool place to eat, shop, and entertain.”

The shop and food truck inspired his Chicagoan friends and regulars, Alex and Sarah Pearsall, to pitch the idea of investing in a new location in town. Opening a new space in 2018 sparked a broader vision of food, retail, and lodging in what Matt calls a shop-dine-stay experience in one building. It was then that he says he felt like he was hitting his stride as a creative entrepreneur.

Two years later, the Covid crisis hit restaurants hard. But Matt looks at that time as another chapter in finding new ways to do things to serve the supportive community around him.

The food truck where it all started.

“What’s become part of our culture is the people. Covid meant having fewer hours, putting up plexiglass by the front door, and serving people through a pick-up service. People wrote messages on their order tickets, and there was such an outpouring of love and support. ‘We miss you. We love the space.’ Their support got us through lean times. We still have those messages on their tickets hanging up.”

It’s that love and support that also makes Horseradish a friendly space for LGBTQ+ patrons, their friends, and for Matt himself. A Trans Pride flag hangs in the building, and staff notice more and more same-sex couples visiting the restaurant. Matt reflects on his own coming out journey, and says he may have played it safe being from a small town. But the more his team embraced being a welcoming place, the more people responded to it.

“No matter what’s going on in the world, it all disappears when you come in here. It’s a safe space for everybody. It’s been the people coming in here that validated my experience that we’re going to be okay. It’s like a community coming out, in a way. The more I dug into it, I felt more myself because I’ve been able to work through it all with the people who come here.”