
December 30, 2024
CRIVITZ – Many businesses pride themselves on giving back to their communities and helping out wherever they can.
But it’s rare to find a business owner who puts as much of himself into his business as “On A Whim” owner Jake Figas said he puts into his.
But then, the entire business is rare.
Though often described as a wine and gift store, Figas said On A Whim is much more than that.
Home to 50 different kinds of liquor, 50 different kinds of beer and 240 kinds of wine – one, he said, more different from the next and few, if any, that you’d find at a grocery store or big-box retailer.
Figas said On A Whim has the “best and most extensive” Moscato collection around.
“I hand-select them, meaning I sample every one of those items before I bring it in,” he said. “So, if you’re looking at the store and seeing 400 bottles in it, I have probably, in the past eight years, tasted more than 5,000 different things.”
Figas said he somewhat bristles at On A Whim being called a liquor store, because he doesn’t consider that fully accurate.
On the store’s Facebook page, Figas describes the business as a “Bottle Shop & Gift Boutique” offering original inventory and an unforgettable experience.
That experience, he said, starts the moment customers walk through the door, where they are greeted with a warm hello and a sample of wine, if they’d like.
“Wine is a very pretentious beverage, and we make it very accessible,” he said.
Alcohol, Figas said, is one part of his business – with the other part being retail, though he stops short of calling it a gift store.
“We sell beauty products, jewelry, oil fragrance, mugs, candles, shackets (oversized shirt jackets), clothing, simmer pots, purses, gourmet food and hats, among other things,” he said. “The long story short on the non-alcoholic side of the business is I work with more than 100 different vendors… It is a very unique store and very curated – curated in a way that other boutiques, I would humbly say, are not.”

And yet, for all the store carries, On A Whim’s 2,000-square-foot space inside a strip mall at 907 N. U.S. Highway 141 in Crivitz, Figas said, is very well managed.
“It’s not a cluttered space,” he said. “There’s plenty of room to see everything we’re selling.”
Figas said On A Whim offers an “intimate,” cozy, warm atmosphere for customers to “forget their life for a little while.”
“People always leave happier than when they came,” he said. “It’s a space where everyone feels equal and comfortable. It’s a space where people can feel elevated.”
Making a difference for many
Figas said he operates his business from the heart and, as such, wanted to do something for small local nonprofits or other local causes important to him.
So, On A Whim holds what’s called a “Monthly Bourbon Raffle 4 Charity.”
This particular idea, Figas said, came about because he was able to get his hands on a bottle of Blanton’s bourbon – a sought-after bourbon, even among rare whiskey collectors.
Part of what makes it rare, he said, is that it has an eight-year aging process.
Rather than directly sell the bottle to someone, Figas said he decided the best – and fairest – thing to do was to raffle it off and donate the money to a charity.
That, he said, was in August 2023.
Since then, Figas said On A Whim has held a drawing each month to raffle off a different bourbon or combination of bourbons, many of which are difficult even for connoisseurs to find.
All the profits from each month’s raffle are donated to a worthy cause, of which Figas said he is very selective.
“We’ve chosen charities like the Crivitz Fire Department, Crivitz Rescue Squad, Crivitz Theater program, the Crivitz Library and Misfit Mutts in Green Bay,” he said. “There was a 17-year-old boy who was hit by a car in Marinette that we donated to, along with two kids with cancer. We try to choose and draw attention to these very small charitable opportunities.”
All raffles offer 50 tickets, sold for $20 apiece.
Figas said the drawing is held on Facebook Live – with the winner receiving the bourbon and the $1,000 raised going to a local charity.
By the end of 2024, Figas said On A Whim’s Monthly Bourbon Raffle 4 Charity will have donated more than $20,000 to nonprofits.
Initially, he said he thought it would be a one-and-done occurrence, never imagining it would grow into what it has.
Because Figas uses choice bourbons to raise money for charity, he said one of On A Whim’s distributors – Buffalo Trace – allows him to purchase a mix of very select, hard-to-get bourbons once a quarter to raffle off each month.
In addition to Blanton’s and Buffalo Trace, Figas said he also raffles off Eagle Rare and E.H. Taylor.
“We now get bourbons we never would have gotten because (we started the raffle for) charity, and it’s turned into something we never thought it would,” he said.
The drawings on Facebook Live, Figas said, are widely watched, with one attracting 12,000 views.
Though he came up with the idea for the charity raffle, Figas said it wouldn’t be what it is if it weren’t for the people participating.
Coming to the business honestly, but indirectly
Figas said On A Whim was founded in 2006 by a woman named Martha Rechner.
He said her physician-husband had retired and they decided to move to Crivitz, where they had a second home.
Figas said she soon after retired from her nursing career.
After settling into retirement, he said Rechner had a dream of opening a wine and gift shop.
Not long after, Figas said she turned that dream into a reality and On A Whim was born.
Meanwhile, Figas graduated from Marquette University in 2008 and ended up spending three years volunteering in the Peace Corps, after which he lived on the West Coast between Portland and Seattle, he said, doing different things.
After five years, Figas said he decided to come back to Wisconsin, pursue a Ph.D. in economics and become a college professor – but said he never got that far.

Someone he’d grown up with was working at On A Whim at the time, Figas said, and he started to spend a lot of time there.
One thing led to another, and in about 2016, he said he started picking up some part-time hours at the store.
By this time, Figas said Rechner was thinking of selling the store and after some conversations and soul-searching, he said he and his friend purchased the store from her in 2017.
“I decided this was an opportunity that could come and go, but that I couldn’t pass up,” he said. “I knew I could always go back to school and a graduate program.”
By 2021, Figas said his friend wanted to pursue other things and he bought her out, becoming the sole owner.
Since then, he said the store has undergone some physical changes.
For years, the store was 1,000 square feet, but in April 2022, Figas said the space next door became available, enabling him to double the size of the store.
And in April 2024, he said he made a major investment in the store by remodeling the entire space.
“For two years we just wanted to make sure that expansion was the right decision for us,” he said, adding that when he determined it was, he pulled the trigger on a remodel.
Figas said he regrets none of his business decisions – saying he gets as much out of the store as his customers do.
“This is a business of heart,” he said. “People come in here and forget about life for a while – whether it’s their economic standing, a recent experience they’ve been through, a loss, whatever. People come in here and always leave happier than they came. And that’s what we do.”
Figas said for him, money is not the motivating factor.
“It’s the people we help and the relationships that we build,” he said. “I have come to have connections with most people who walk through the door regularly, and I love the strangers I get to meet along the way. And I love being an ambassador for Crivitz.”
On A Whim is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday.
For more details, find On A Whim – Crivitz on Facebook.