If you’ve never been to a Wisconsin supper club, I highly recommend the experience. It’s a bit of nostalgia mixed with warm familiarity and a lively, fun atmosphere. It is French Onion Soup, steak and seafood (comfort food) combined with laughter and Old-Fashioneds. It is a different encounter at each one to be sure, but you’ll find a common thread among them all: an entire evening event designed to be relaxing and entertaining.
Supper clubs originated in London, England, actually, right around the year 1800. A new law had gone into effect forcing pubs (public houses) to close at 12:30am. Someone in London apparently thought, “This will never do,” and the private supper club was established. Being private, you see, the supper clubs needed not adhere to laws created for the public venues, and the party could continue until the wee hours of the morning.
The foundations of those original supper clubs made their way across the pond to New York City, moving inland as entrepreneurs hopped aboard trains and headed west. As we rolled into the 1900’s and Prohibition, the Midwest (Wisconsin in particular), brought supper clubs to the forefront of the hospitality industry. Today, over 250 supper clubs can be found throughout the state, each of which represents traditional local heritage in its own unique way.
One of the biggest questions people normally ask about supper clubs is… “What’s the difference?” How do you know if you’re at a supper club or a restaurant? This is one of my favorite parts…it’s kind of just the experience that makes it different. There are no set-in-stone rules that make something a supper club rather than a restaurant. However, IYKYK (if you know, you know).
Over this past weekend, we had a mission. Seven supper clubs, three days. It took some serious logistics to pull it off, but it was well worth it!
It turns out that “back in the day” a supper club had a clear pattern for guests to follow. You see, in order to qualify as a supper club you have to have a rather massive bar area, usually right when you walk in the door. In the 1950’s and 60’s, everyone who entered the supper club first stopped at the bar (we found it appropriate to follow suit). This is where you ordered your first (or second, or third) cocktail and you read your menu. When you pop up your menu on the bar (or flip over a number, or some other known protocol), the server then comes over and takes your dinner order. You then continue chatting with your friends at the bar, finish off your cocktail (and maybe order another), and when your food is ready your server returns to show you to your table in the dining room and as soon as you sit down, your salad is served as the first course.
And when your meal was complete, you’d simply stroll on back to the bar to meet back up with your friends and take in the evening entertainment.
Many of the supper clubs we visited this weekend still follow a similar pattern, and it is just an incredible amount of fun on so many levels.
Some of the highlights from the weekend, in no particular order, include arriving at Blanck’s ten minutes before it opened to find a line down the street waiting to get in. Upon joining the line, the town church bell chimed 4:00 and the doors opened. By the time we entered the bar area, it was completely filled with menus popped up and blended ice cream drinks lining the far side of the bar. Another sure sign of a supper club is the number of ice cream cocktails offered, you see.
We experienced a brand new bartender at one, just learning to make Old-Fashioneds. At another, we chatted with one of the cooks who disclosed that on a good Sunday, they will serve over 3,000 pieces of chicken. I suppose that can happen more easily when there are 4 pieces of chicken to an order, but still… At another, we were seated between Bud and Larry at the bar, a couple of guys who met at the supper club a year or two ago and now get together with their wives every so often to meet up and share a meal. Bud is a financial advisor, and Larry owns a shop in a town about 40 minutes away. One of the seven supper clubs (you’ll notice only six are pictured above) had closed down earlier that week after the owner passed away. Google had not yet changed the hours, so we ventured that way only to find a sad note on the door and a “For Sale” sign out front.
We created and ranked many categories as we ventured from one to the next, and on down the road to yet another. Some of the spots are worth a return visit, some not as much, but all had a story of their own and each was worth the adventure.
Winning the “Best of the Weekend” Category was a bit tricky, so we decided to split it into two different classifications. The place we’ll return first will be Jim and Linda’s Supper Club, situated on the southeast end of Lake Winnebago. What a LOVELY venue! The sun was going down, the lake glittered in the evening light, the bar was packed, the dining room was unparalleled, and the menu was quite fantastic. Great drinks, fun people…overall well worth return trips many times over.
We decided to call the second category the “Hidden Gem” and that prize goes to a little place called “Gobbler’s Knob. It was the last stop of the weekend; suffice it to say we were fairly exhausted by that point. There was a bit of sleet-like snow whirling around and it was more than tempting to head back to our AirBNB to wrap up in a blanket and watch a few more March Madness games. So glad we persevered!
Cindy, the owner of the Gobbler’s Knob, was filled with enthusiasm and fun. She shared her story with us, crafted our cocktails, and recommended everything on the menu. She clearly loves what she has created in the little town of Stockbridge, Wisconsin, as did we. The atmosphere was wonderful, the food was delicious, and the little dining room was well taken care of by a fabulous staff. A fantastic way to end our weekend adventure!
And the excitement has only just begun…we’ve been to just about 11 or 12 supper clubs at this point (we are still debating whether one was a supper club or a restaurant)…so there are many more adventures to be found!
Hillary Danaher 