Tolkkinen: Internet piles on Crow Wing County Trump fan

EMILY, MINN. – Maybe if Allen Brenycz hadn’t posted a Trump Vance 2024 sign outside his Crow Wing County restaurant, his business would have slid downhill anyway.

Brenycz, better known as Big Al, owner of Big Al’s Bar & Grill, says he’s lost half his customers since putting up the tall electronic sign. He made the claims on Donald Trump Jr.’s podcast, Triggered, asking Trump to call attention to an online fundraiser where he’s asking for donations to keep the sign going. More than a month in, he’s raised about one-fifth of his goal.

“As many of you know after coming out and advertising for a political figure I am alienating a good percentage of customers,” he said online. “Many folks voting with feelings will just simply refuse to patronize my business because of my support. With your help that won’t matter.”

The internet responded like school-yard bullies, falling on their keisters, laughing and pointing at Big Al. Look at him! He’s ruining his own business to help a man who doesn’t even know he’s alive! Haw haw!

They made fun of his weight. They dragged up his arrest record from when he was a 20-year-old clerk (he’s 54 now). They trashed his restaurant on Yelp. He says he’s received death threats, and threats to burn down his restaurant; the sheriff’s office confirmed it has received those reports.

But how much of Big Al’s business woes actually come from his support for Trump?

Big Al concedes that the restaurant isn’t in a good location — too far from where people live, especially when they want to drink.

Neighbor Katy Kertzmann, who considers him a good person and eats at his restaurant, says Big Al has lost business not because of politics — or at least not only because of politics — but because people feel he can be rude.

“For years we’ve wondered how he’s been able to hold onto his business,” she said. “He’s burned a lot of bridges.”

Fridays are normally busy at bars and restaurants. But this past Friday, Big Al’s was only partly full. It was hard to find an empty bar stool, but the big section was empty. Customers came for the meat raffle and wished him happy birthday as they went out the door. He turned 54.

“This is my birthday this year, dealing with this,” he said.

The bar is all Big Al owns. He bought it in 2017 during the first year Trump was in office, and things were good for him.

But then the pandemic arrived in 2020. Minnesota ordered restaurants closed, right after Big Al had stocked up for St. Patrick’s Day, his best business day of the year. He blames the Democrats, particularly Gov. Tim Walz, for the shutdown. He received COVID business assistance, but it wasn’t enough, he said, and the government taxed it as income. Then he was hit by a winter with no snow, so the snowmobilers stayed away.

Now he hopes to limp the restaurant through the winter and try to find a buyer in the spring in time for the summer rush.

With times so tough for his business, why did Big Al choose to further alienate customers by announcing whom he supports during a divisive presidential election? He says he is that committed to getting Trump back in the White House. He believes the country is a mess, that there are too many illegal immigrants who don’t want to work. He has trouble finding steady help, he said.

If his sign can persuade one person to vote for Trump, he said, it will be worth it.

On Monday, I was on the phone with Big Al when a man drove up. Big Al started to send him away, saying the restaurant was closed. But the man, from Long Prairie, Minn., 84 miles down the road, didn’t leave.

His name was Bill Pesta, and he’d seen the bruising Big Al has been taking online.

“I just wanted to shake your hand,” Pesta said. “I’m sick of our political division. I’m sick of people having a different viewpoint and then getting put down.”

And they started to bond, these two ordinary Minnesota men, over Trump, over their rights, over their disgust with liberals and a changing America.