Midway through Dining Month here at OnMilwaukee.com, we told you about Mader's, the oldest restaurant in Milwaukee.

That got us thinking ...

What is the busiest restaurant in town?

Some may guess that it's the McDonald's on Hwy. 100 at lunchtime or Serb Hall during a Friday fish fry. Based on our recent readers' survey, some may say that it's Oakland Gyros at bar closing time.

While those are solid suppositions, we think the answer is pretty clear:

Miller Park.

Although the place is only open 81 days a year (barring playoffs, of course), it attracted nearly 2.8 million customers this season and most of them were hungry and thirsty. On an average night, the Sportservice operation at the ballpark, headed by general manager Tom Olson (no relation, -ed.) and operations manager Jon Clope, has about 800 to 900 employees and sells between 12,000 and 14,000 sausages.

We'll save talk about beer sales for when Bar Month rolls around.

We caught up with Olson and Clope shortly after the regular season ended and talked about what it's like to feed nearly three million people in what amounts to 81 four-hour openings.

OnMilwaukee.com: Although the Brewers didn't make the playoffs this season, they did set a franchise attendance record. I'm guessing that meant you guys set some sales records, too?

Tom Olson: We had a great year, no doubt about it. There is definitely a lot of planning that goes into this. It's not just one person. We have a staff of 30 year-round managers that make it happen. We have the .300 Club, the luxury suites, our catering operation, our retail arm, and the club level side. There are really six components that oversee the ballpark.

OnMilwaukee.com: With all the people visiting the ballpark, how do you avoid running out of hot dogs or brats on a given night?

TO: It's one thing to feed 40,000. That's the easy part. The hard part is figuring out the next six days. I always say that it's easier to run a ballpark when it's almost a full house every day. The hard time is when you go from 40,000 people one night to 10,000 people the next and then maybe 20,000 the night after that.

The food isn't the tough part. You can order pallets of beer and brats. Managing the staff is harder. When you tell them to go away, that's harder. This year, we could pretty much say "See you tomorrow," almost every day because we knew that all our people would be back the next day.

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