Wisconsin’s World Class Supper Clubs
Wisconsin’s World Class Supper Clubs

Seated next to a vast wall of westward facing windows, we watch the sun detonate against the cornfields, ridges and coulees beyond Highway 14 and the Nordic Cheese Store. Just outside the Scandinavian enclave of Westby, Wisconsin and nestled atop a ridge sits the Old Towne Inn, a classic Wisconsin supper club by every measure. The dining room is hardly opulent, but rather Midwestern humble, with patrons largely dressed-down and comfy. Off to our left, diners line up at an ample salad bar, and soon enough, our waitress, Char, settles a blackberry Old-Fashioned in front of me. My blood pressure immediately drops 20 points.

As a kid growing up in Wisconsin, supper clubs occupied a space in my imagination somewhere between cozy familiarity and exotic escape. These were places where, on Friday nights, my parents and grandparents donned their finest sports coats, slacks, dresses and jewelry and we went out on the town, or into the country, into darkened dining rooms, either draped in velvet and upholstered in cushy Naugahyde or paneled in rich knotty pine and populated by impressive menageries of taxidermy. Supper clubs were magical places, portals to the Wisconsin weekend.

But like all magic, the trick is a suspension of belief, a willful desire to participate. Wisconsin’s supper clubs proliferated in a heyday of small-town style and commerce, a time of healthy civic culture and arguably less-healthy eating habits. It is perhaps no surprise that many have not survived into our present day, with its ubiquitous chain restaurants and fast-casual, velvet-less aesthetics.

These days, truly classic supper clubs are a disappearing trick: not impossible to find on the landscape, but done right—rare. But for three spring days, my family and I set forth to find just such fabled places: A quest for not only the magical Wisconsin supper club, but also for perch, that endangered fish once native to most any Friday fish-fry menu.

Supper clubs, first and foremost, are about community and family. And there I sit, with my wife of nearly 20 years and our two children, all of us aggressively attacking a dish of freshly fried cheese curds. My wife orders a beer, the kids order Shirley Temples, and we make sorties to the salad bar, filling plates with lettuce, cheese, noodle-salads and all manner of fixings. Then onto the no-frills Fish & Chicken Buffet, which actually serves delicious, firm perch filets, in manageable portions that do not require tartar sauce (though plenty was on hand).

Perch, once a staple of supper club menus and the Friday night fish fries that are a rooted tradition in the upper Midwest, has become difficult to find, especially in Wisconsin’s western or northern reaches. With the introduction of invasive zebra and quagga mussels, perch are being starved for zooplankton, leading to an epic collapse of a once proud and popular fishery. The result is an all-too-modern complexity, where an icon of Lake Superior cuisine can now only be commercially fished in Lake Michigan.

Another hallmark of any good supper club is the staff. Could a high-school kid earn their stripes serving at a supper club? Sure. But, back in the day, patrons like my grandparents had most-favored waiters or waitresses, true professionals who remembered preferred drinks or entrees. For my dad: a vodka martini straight-up with a twist of lemon. For my grandparents: strong, strong Manhattans. Char is a perfect example of just such a waitress. She’s worked at the Old Towne since 1980, the year my wife was born. Her timing is impeccable, never hurried and she never forgets or delays a thing. How do you train a server to replace or complement someone like Char? How do you hire a new employee with such organic commitment to place such dedication, such grace? What twenty-year-old person in 2024 can imagine a forty-year tenure waiting tables with such humble nobility?

For patrons, meanwhile, a Wisconsin supper club is an exercise in forgetting the existence of fat or calories. As our Old Towne meal comes to its conclusion, we order two “milkshake” cocktails, yet another supper club standby—in this case, a Pink Squirrel (vanilla ice cream, clear crème de cacao and crème de noyaux) and a Grasshopper (crème de menthe, crème de cacao and vanilla ice cream).

That night we retreat to the reverently restored Hotel Fortnoy, built in 1899. The first-floor bar is hopping with patrons. In the dimming-down dusk, downtown Viroqua, a jewel of Wisconsin’s Driftless Region, looks just like some canvas team-painted by Edward Hopper and Grant Wood. The ghost of Jimmy Stewart might whistle a tune as he walks down the street, window-shopping by moonlight.

We sleep the sleep of a family over-full and happy.

Out of the Driftless and pointing north towards Lake Superior, our minivan wanders through valleys, hollers and coulees, then rides the rich farm-country of west-central Wisconsin. Up Highway 53 we cross into the country north of Chippewa Falls, a region where folks like to argue where exactly “The Northwoods” actually begins. For this Wisconsinite, I’m okay with agreeing that The Northwoods might begin at the venerable Leinenkugel’s Brewery, but this is a contentious assertion, no doubt.

Early in the afternoon we pull our swagger- wagon into the parking lot of Garmisch USA Restaurant, a definite destination for understanding the complexities of Wisconsin dining and cuisine. Garmisch sits on the shore of Namekagon Lake and was an inspiration for a scene in my second novel, The Hearts of Men. During the day, the stately pines, deep blue lake and pristine sky all conspire to lull you into a kind of dining-room bliss. The view looks like an old Hamm’s Beer advertisement. Time fades. The aesthetic here is very classic supper club: so much knotty pine paneling, kitschy taxidermy and cabin décor, a certain age group might instantly recall the 1987 George Harrison video “Got My Mind Set on You.” At any moment you expect a badger or stuffed buck to sing along with the jukebox.

Back in the day, supper clubs were the Friday evening opening ceremony for the weekend. Now, they’re also stopovers along recreational trails. At Garmisch, the fare hits the spot, but it’s the experience of the “campus” that is essential. Explore the restaurant and grounds, take in Northwoods Wisconsin ATV culture or, in the wintertime, commune with cross-country skiers prepping for the American Birkebeiner, the biggest Nordic race in America.

We arrive in Washburn, along the shores of Lake Superior, around 4 p.m., after a hard day of driving. No bones about it: Viroqua to Washburn isn’t an easy jaunt. But it is a wonderful way to see sacred parts of the state often forgotten by most travel guides or publications based out of Chicago, Milwaukee, Madison or Green Bay.

We take a different tack on this evening, visiting my best friend, Josh Swan, proprietor of J.W. Swan & Sons Boatworks. Josh trained at the International Yacht Restoration School in Newport, Rhode Island, and is roundly considered an expert in his field, the kind of guy who is increasingly rare: He can harvest his own lumber, mill it and then put all the locally sourced materials to work building vernacular-style boats. He’s a low-key genius, and he offers to cook us a fish-fry in his front yard, Lake Superior off to the south beyond verdant fields of clover, a collapsing barn and deciduous trees leafing out. It might seem like heresy to write about a homemade fish-fry while also in search of Wisconsin supper clubs, but if the spirit of a supper club is community and family, no need to be shy about supporting the local fisheries along Lake Superior.

Perch is on the menu again, and Josh cooks it to perfection. Light, flaky, delicate and tasty. No lemon or tartar sauce needed. Fresh out of the frying pan, hot on the fingertips. He cooks up about two pounds and between six adults and five kids, the perch is scarfed in less than five minutes.

Then it’s onto pounds of locally sourced whitefish, but best of all, Josh's take on lake trout: very lightly battered, and so simple and tasty you can’t stop eating it if you tried. But we try to stop. At least long enough to carry the fish inside to a table where the adults are left alone while kids play somewhere sight unseen. The table is a bounty of local foods. Fish, two varieties of homemade tartar sauce, coleslaw and beers galore. Later, as the children get restless, a rhubarb crumble appears along with vanilla ice cream from a tiny honor-system store, mostly unattended, but stocked for a traveling family.

Tonight, the lullaby soundtrack is Lake Superior washing against ancient stones and wave-smoothed tree roots.

As long as you have driven this far north, why not drive a little further? So we do. Into Bayfield, one of the most picturesque small communities in America. Wander through downtown and gaze out at Lake Superior and the ferry chugging towards Madeline Island. Further up the road, in the tribal lands of the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, pull off the highway and enter the Red Cliff Fish Company. Buy some local fish for a future dinner or snack, and then climb back into the van and drive to Cornucopia, Wisconsin, home of the state’s northernmost post office.

I’ve always had a soft spot for “Corny.” It feels like the end of the world, or maybe the end of America, but it is definitely the end of Wisconsin. At the shore you’ll find one of the most beautiful beaches in the state and an eclectic collection of small shops. We buy more fish at Halvorson’s. Then we take our positions, retrieved books or earplugs and point the van south.

Roughly four hours later, I drop everyone at our home and keep going solo, west from south of Eau Claire towards Menomonie, a truly winning small town known for its local college (U.W.-Stout) and the venerable Mabel Tainter Theater. My final destination for this mission is Jake’s Supper Club, an establishment I love to showcase to out-of- towners. There is always a great crowd at the expansive bar and a multitude of dark corners and crannies to while away the evening.

On this night, I sit alone, enjoying a cold bottle of Leinenkugel's, a cup of very good French onion soup, an order of pan-fried walleye (a good perch substitute) and a mushroom risotto. It does feel a little odd to order a milkshake cocktail without my family, but I do anyway, and slowly nurse a Golden Cadillac while I watch dusk descend on the white pines and water outside. A group of friends are laughing at the bar and telling loud stories. Other folks are swapping jokes. On many weekend nights there is outdoor live music, hundreds of patrons and a tiki- bar vibe utterly unique to Wisconsin. Pickup trucks line the roads, packed as tightly as any cars on a Chicago street, despite the relative openness.

As a Romantic, I don’t much like change. I prefer venerable, proven restaurants to the novelty of new and exciting. This might explain my love of supper clubs. While everyone is refreshing their browsers in search of buzzworthy restaurants, I like to seek and support the proven places. I like the Chars of the world, who commit and stay and serve. The Josh Swans, who know their own landscapes so well that over time, they accidentally-on-purpose perfect divine breading or seasoning and nimbly monitor the temperature of their cooking oil, while making brilliant conversation.

You’ll know you’ve found supper-club gold if perch is on the menu and your server looks like she could be your mom’s best friend. You’ll know you’ve found a good supper club when the other patrons talk to you or are curious how you discovered their secret spot. If you see me at the bar, say hello, or better yet, buy me a milkshake.