Earlier this summer, I filed a long dispatch from the great Wisconsin supper club scene to County Highway, America’s only newspaper. I’m pleased to say it’s out in the current September issue, available only in print. I encourage you to subscribe if you’re into American journalism of the non-“coastal elite” variety! But I’d never leave you guys hanging. Below is an excerpt of that piece, in which I overshare about my personal life if you can believe it. Following that, I happily present SCARY COOL SAD GOODBYE’s 1st annual Wisconsin Supper Club Awards! Between May and August this year, I visited 15 supper clubs from the Northwoods to the Driftless to Door County and beyond, and have compiled for your dining pleasure the best of the bunch with regard to vibes, food, and views. As the Midwest supremacy movement continues to sweep the nation, don’t say I didn’t warn you. It’s been said that Wisconsin has more ghosts per square mile than any state in America, a claim I can’t substantiate but buy nevertheless. It seems like every town has a ghost story of its own: haunted hotels, haunted theaters, haunted steakhouses and saloons, and in the case of Ridgeway, WI (population 645) a haunted highway whose ghost was once held culpable for beating a farmer to death. (Or so said a New York Times report from 1902, “Some Wisconsin Ghosts.”) Some have seen the apparition of a Christmas tree delivery ship that sank into Lake Michigan off the shore near Manitowoc in November 1912, or heard the disembodied sounds of the Kickapoo Polka Band, whose eerie music floats through the Vernon County woods. Others have seen the ghosts of gangsters who laid low in the Northwoods at spots like Manitowish Waters’ Little Bohemia Lodge, where to this day you can enjoy fried lake perch, potatoes, coleslaw, and rye bread in a place whose windows still have bullet holes from the FBI’s botched raid on the Dillinger gang in 1934. This was more or less what brought me heading north on 51 towards the vast woods and glacial lakes of the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest: not gangster lore but Friday fish fry, my favorite Wisconsin tradition. The European Catholic immigrants who settled the state in the late 1800s abstained from meat on Fridays; lake fish like bluegill, perch, and walleye were plentiful and cheap. During the Prohibition years, law-abiding local taverns stayed afloat by selling fish plates at weekly Friday socials, and by the ‘60s, when the Catholic church relaxed their dietary rules, the Friday fish fry had become embedded in Wisconsin life. You could find one at just about any neighborhood bar or restaurant, but for the true experience, you went to the supper club. Those who claim that the Midwest is absent of style have clearly never dined at a Wisconsin supper club, whose dark wood-paneled walls are hung with taxidermy and prize fish, cozily aglow with lighting on the spectrum between “yuletide” and “brothel.” At least that’s the Northwoods hunting lodge ideal; other supper clubs are modest, with church basement ceiling tiles and vinyl tablecloths, done up in the dusty kitsch of grandma’s living room. A few exist in cities like Madison or Milwaukee, but you’ll find the real-deal clubs on the side of two-lane highways, overlooking lakes or encircled by tall pines. They’re family-owned and operated and often keep odd hours, closed for lunch and on most weekdays but never Friday or Saturday night. The once-formal dress code accommodates snowsuits and Realtree camo, the atmosphere a mix of warmly welcoming and privately judgmental, at least if you’re an F.I.B. like me. That’s the word for urbane tourists who flood the state come summer, driving like total psychos, acting like they own the place — “Fuckin’ Illinois Bastards.” I pride myself on social graces, having mostly overcome the painful shyness of my youth to become the kind of woman who waltzes into strange bars and leaves with strange new friends. But in the taverns of Wisconsin, it’s as if they see right through me — some yuppie city slicker dressed self-seriously in black, batting fake eyelashes, scribbling in… is that a notebook? It’s a tough blow to the ego to be so thoroughly clocked, and I become the type of girl I thought I’d outgrown years ago: desperate for approval, on the outside looking in. It isn’t customary to visit supper clubs alone, but there I was, having driven the past 5 ½ hours to line up outside the doorstep of McGregor’s Blink Bonnie Supper Club minutes before it opened, sandwiched between two shaky couples of the Silent Generation with whom I shared a preference for dinner in the afternoon. READ THE REST IN COUNTY HIGHWAY (VOL. 2, ISSUE 2, SEPT/OCTOBER 2024).
BEST VIBE: McGREGOR’S BLINK BONNIE SUPPER CLUB
First things first — there’s no Friday fish fry at Blink Bonnie’s, so don’t ask. This third generation Northwoods club since 1971 isn’t offering the finest supper club food I’ve had. But as our friend the Chi BBQ King says, supper clubs aren’t about having the best meal of your life, as great as prime rib and lake perch can be. It’s all about the vibe. And as vibes go, McGregor’s Blink Bonnie Supper Club is right there at the top. The above photos say it all, from the 12-table Twin Peaks dining room to the knotty pine bar maximally decorated with Northwoods ephemera and glowing brothel red. My lovely waitress Carol spent my meal trying to set me up with this or that geriatric bachelor, then loaned me her umbrella against the coming rain. The bartender regaled me with tales of drunken snowmobiling on custom sleds to wile away the 7-month winters. For some reason, the place doesn’t usually make it into the many wonderful supper club guidebooks or maps you’ll see for sale. All the better for you and I. McGregor's Blink Bonnie Supper Club BEST VIBE (HONORABLE MENTION): TWILIGHT SUPPER CLUB
As I mentioned in July’s Midwest Roadtrip dispatch, no trip to Land’O’Lakes (just below the U.P. border) is complete without a visit to the Twilight Supper Club, where the perch and walleye dinners are decidedly above average, the stuffed pepper soup is to die for, and the salad bar is a cornucopia of not remotely healthy offerings (cheese spreads, liver pâtés, creamy dressings named for European countries). But what you’re really here for are three to seven old-fashioneds in the cozy Sandman Lounge, which come in hefty goblets poured by a swell lady who lamented that she couldn’t bring Preston, her pet pygmy marmoset, to work: “Apparently it’s a health code violation, ugh!” She’ll be glad to tell you where to get one of your own (Tennessee, should you have a spare $6k). Preston unfortunately hates men, which is too bad for Mohammad, the boyfriend she met on a relief mission to Syria, though he doesn’t complain when pissed on by the tiny monkey. “Mohammad doesn’t speak English, so it works out good,” she offered cheerfully. “Mashallah, brother!” The Twilight Supper Club & Sandman Lounge BEST FOOD: SCHWARZ’S SUPPER CLUB
The Supper Club Capital of the Midwest® is right here in Calumet County, as declared by federal trademark in 2014. In terms of ambience, the Northwoods clubs have the edge, but as food goes I’d agree that just east of Lake Winnebago (Wisconsin’s largest inland lake, home to some of the best perch and walleye fishing this planet has to offer) is the place to be. And the undisputed cornerstone of the region also known as Wisconsin’s Holyland is Schwarz’s Supper Club, hidden in the rolling farmlands of the unincorporated community of St. Anna. Now in its third generation, Schwarz’s opened in 1957 and still does things the old-fashioned way: butchering their own meats, hand-breading their onion rings, and pickling their mushrooms according to Grandma Schwarz’s secret recipe. You place your order at the bar, then enjoy a few old-fashioneds (why not go sicko mode and try one garnished with mushrooms?) until your table awaits you with salad, bread, and relish tray. Go on Friday for the fish fry — the best one I’ve tried yet. (P.S. You may smoke inside the game room.) Schwarz's Supper Club BEST FOOD (HONORABLE MENTION): WHITE STAG INN
The White Stag Inn is in the thick of what is known as hodag country — the territory of Northern Wisconsin’s own mythical beast, a vicious fanged creature born from the ashes of dead lumber oxen (so said the lumberjacks’ tall tales). You’ll see one just outside the Rhinelander Chamber of Commerce on your way to the White Stag, where a sign on the door reads, “If You Have a Reservation, You’re in the Wrong Place!” It’s one of the Northwoods’ chic-er supper clubs: dark and moody, with a long bar presided over by a majestic oil painting of tigers (made in 1902 by the owners’ great grandmother) and saintly taxidermy deer. No Friday fish fry, but it’s all good — you come here for the steaks, served enormous, charcoal-broiled, and rare with a big hunk of iceberg lettuce and a bowl of creamy garlic sauce. White Stag Inn BEST VIEW: ISHNALA SUPPER CLUB
I’ll give it to you straight — you don’t really need to dine at Ishnala, Wisconsin’s most iconic supper club. The place sure is enchanting: an elegant log cabin built in 1953 into the bluffs surrounding Mirror Lake, just outside the Dells. But its reputation proceeds it such that it’s usually three hours for a table. (No reservations.) Here’s what you do instead: grab an old-fashioned, Tom Collins or a Tipsy Canoe, plus an order of fried cheese curds, jumbo shrimp cocktail, and prime rib spears, from one of four of the property’s stand-alone bars overlooking the lake. Enjoy them on the balcony or the small beach down below, or if you’re really feeling fancy, rent a pontoon boat and dock it downstairs. And make sure someone’s got a purse with room for a few stolen glasses. They won’t miss ‘em. [EDITOR’S NOTE: Finally got to sit down for dinner at Ishnala this past weekend. You do, in fact, need to dine here for the 3-inch thick prime rib and au gratin potatoes. Arrive early in the off-season and you’ll be seated in an hour.] Ishnala Supper Club BEST VIEW (HONORABLE MENTION): JIM AND LINDA’S
15 minutes west of Schwarz’s is one of the Supper Club Capital’s more slept-on offerings, not on account of the food (it’s aight) but the sunsets over Lake Winnebago. Pull the boat ashore and grab an Adirondack on the sandy, west-facing beach patio, where usually an awful reggae band or a guy called “Sly Joe & the Smooth Operators” will be wonderwallin’ it up beside the tiki bar while bees attempt to drown themselves in your brandy old-fashioned. In other words, the perfect vibe. My advice, should you find yourself near Fond du Lac, is to enjoy early dinner at Schwarz’s, then head to Jim and Linda’s for ice cream drinks: Brandy Alexander, Grasshopper, or Pink Squirrel. (If you need to crash, there’s a solid haunted hotel nearby.) Jim and Linda's Lakeview Supper Club ASK US ABOUT…⋆ Blanck’s Supper Club (Malone, WI) ⋆ Buckhorn Supper Club (Milton, WI) ⋆ Clearview Supper Club (St. Germain, WI) ⋆ The Del-Bar (Wisconsin Dells, WI) ⋆ Donny’s Glidden Lodge (Door County, WI) ⋆ The Duck Inn Supper Club (Delavan, WI) ⋆ Gib’s on the Lake (Kewaunee, WI) ⋆ The Hobnob (Racine, WI) ⋆ Norwood Pines Supper Club (Minocqua, WI) Or drop us a line for a recommendation!
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