Parm highlights local food and drink

Kat Halfman

Past Contributor

September 5, 2023

OSHKOSH – Today, Parm is a brick-and-mortar restaurant in Oshkosh, but it didn’t start out that way.

After 10 years in the restaurant industry, Chef Andrew Saray started Parm as a monthly pop-up restaurant.

“I’d been working at restaurants my whole life, and I rose through the ranks quickly,” he said. “By 18, I was managing some of my uncle’s kitchens at Ground Round (a restaurant and catering company) and doing some chef work. My uncle taught me a lot of the behind-the-scenes stuff, like inventory and management skills. I owe a lot to him.”

Though Saray has years of industry experience, he never attended culinary school.

However, he said he doesn’t see this as a setback.

“I never went to culinary school – I was fortunate enough to work for some smart people my entire career, whether they be general managers or executive chefs or owners,” he said. “I was fortunate to find smart people and soak up as much knowledge as I could from them to get where I’m at now. I’m never going to discourage culinary school, but when you have that kind of bond, it’s a mutual respect.”

After growing up in the Oshkosh area, Saray said he felt he needed to experience some different culinary environments, prompting a move out of state.

“There weren’t a lot of advanced, experimental culinary places in Oshkosh at the time, so I moved to Montana for a while,” he said. “Then I ended up in Rochester, Minnesota, and eventually back to Wisconsin in Tomah.”

While there, Saray said he was promoted to general manager at Ground Round in 2019.

“At that time, I was doing more front-of-house work, but I still learned a lot,” he said. “I did scheduling for almost everything – the bar manager, the servers, the cooks – and I ordered all the food.”

Saray said he found himself working long hours and decided his success thus far was proof he could run his own restaurant.

“I decided, ‘okay, if I’m working for somebody else, I can do it myself,’” he said. “So, I started working on a business plan, and then the COVID-19 pandemic hit.”

That, Saray said, stalled things. 

“Everybody was confused about COVID,” he said. “We were still worried about investing money, but I felt I had to get the ball rolling – to prove not only to everyone else but also to myself that I was serious about it.”

Getting off the ground
Parm held its first pop-up dinner in July 2021, hosting a five-course meal for 50 people at Copper Hall in Oshkosh.

“We did three more of those in August, September and October at The Venture Project, Fuel The Fire and Bar 430,” Saray said.

After four successful pop-up dinners, Saray said he decided to take the next step and rent out Primo restaurant three days a week, through November, December and January.

“That first night at Primo, we didn’t know what to expect,” he said. “We thought, ‘well, if we can serve 20 people a night, that’s enough for it to be worth it.’ That first night, we served 170 people. The next night, it was 190 – it was bananas. We were reservation only, but the phone kept ringing.”

Despite Parm’s quick success, Saray said operating as a pop-up-only restaurant certainly came with a unique set of challenges.

Parm’s specialty is wood-fired Neapolitan pizzas. Submitted Photo

“There was the legal side of trying to find a kitchen to cook out of – the fees are the same no matter how many days you use, so it became expensive to do it that way,” he said. “I had to pay rent for each of the four venues, which was hundreds of dollars for one night. On the flip side, having a fun, different space became a part of it. We did an event hall, we did an office space, and that was cool.”

After three months of operating part-time at Primo, Saray said Parm took a few months off, coming back in May of 2022.

“I signed a lease for this little six-chair restaurant, where most of our business came from catering and takeout,” he said. “We bought a mobile catering oven, and we were there for about six months before we graduated to our current location – where we installed a wood-fired oven.”

Earlier this year, Parm’s permanent location opened at 1652 Oshkosh Ave. in Oshkosh.

Italian, French flair
Parm’s signature is Italian- and French-inspired cuisine, and Saray said the wood-fired oven plays an important role in the kitchen.

“Our specialty is wood-fired Neapolitan pizzas,” he said. “We have other entrees, too, like salmon, steak and gnocchi, and we’ll be introducing some more sandwiches and soups for the fall season.”

Saray said the wood-fired pizza oven is the only cooking apparatus at Parm, which means “we get a unique take on things, like our gnocchi, it forms a bit of char in the oven, which gives it a crunch.”

“I think a lot of our identity as a restaurant is rooted in that wood-fired oven,” he said.

Saray said Parm sources its ingredients locally as much as possible, teaming up with other businesses.

“There are some local farms we rely on for produce, we get our bread here in Oshkosh from Thunderbird Bakery and get our sausage from Wagner Market,” he said. “There’s also some local wineries we like to go to, and we get a lot of our beer from local breweries. This distillery called Sturgeon Spirits recently opened up and we try to source alcohol from them. My philosophy is what goes around comes around, so if I can support these guys, maybe one day they’ll support me.”

Saray said Parm also gets some desserts from Thunderbird Bakery.

“But, we’re rolling out our next menu and pretty much everything off that is going to be made in-house,” he said. “We’re going to have crème brulée, some cannoli and fregolotta, and we’ll make those in the wood-fired oven as well.”

Saray said one of his favorite parts of owning his own restaurant is controlling the menu, which changes regularly.

“We change or tweak the menu every few weeks, which allows us to introduce new things and avoid boring our guests,” he said. “If it works, we keep it, and if it doesn’t, well, the worst thing you can do is try.”

A good move
Saray said the journey from pop-ups to a permanent location has been stressful, but worthwhile.

“Much like a lot of people in my industry, I’m a workaholic,” he said. “I like having the restaurant – for me, that’s what’s important. It’s not about the money.”

Parm Chef and Owner Andy Saray said one of his favorite parts of owning his own restaurant is controlling the menu, which changes regularly. Submitted Photo

Saray said, for him, it’s about making those connections.

“People come in, and whether it’s a guest that just had a baby, we can talk about and celebrate that, or someone who comes in for lunch once a week, and we talk for 10 minutes every week,” he said. “My methodology has changed since I first started out in this industry. As a dumb teenager, I hoped to own my own restaurant and make hundreds of thousands of dollars. Now, it’s about the people.”

Parm offers $10 Tuesdays, where patrons can purchase a drink and a pizza for $10. 

“To me, good food doesn’t have to be expensive,” Saray said. “With the $10 Tuesdays, it gives the option at least one day a week where someone can come and try us, even if they can only afford to go out to eat once a month or once a quarter.”

For more information on Parm, visit parmwi.com or check its Facebook page.