It was still raining that November 2ndnight as we left the White House Inn. So rather than walk in the rain, Judy drove us around the corner to the Butte des Morts Supper Club.
It was a cold and stormy night...
Here follows a digression on supper clubs: Some say the supper club is a unique Wisconsin creation. Being a Wisconsin native I never gave the term much thought. For all I knew supper clubs existed in all fifty states. Sheboygan, my hometown, had a very popular one: The Flamingo. My dad said that in the 1930s gambling was legal there—slot machines, generally. I remember the place from the 1950’s and 1960’s. It was where family groups went to celebrate birthdays and other special events. It was where high school students going to the Christmas or Easter formals went for dinner before the dance itself at the Country Club. There was a large oval bar in the barroom which had a domed ceiling lit with pinkish red lights. The main dining room was huge with a stage and dance floor at the far end. The Flamingo is gone now. But I found an old picture of it on a web site when it was called The Club Arabia.
Shortly after our beer trail ride to Butte des Morts, the November 27th Sunday New York Times Travel section had a full page article with lots of colored pictures of three supper clubs in Northern Wisconsin. One wonders what mid-town Manhattanites thought of the pictures of knotty pine walls with a stuffed muskie and a mounted deer’s head. According to the author supper clubs were popular in the northern state after the end of Prohibition as places where people could go for drinks, dinner, dancing and entertainment.
I missed the PBS special “Wisconsin Supper Clubs—An Old Fashioned Experience” which was aired a few days after the Times article. The old fashioned in the title refers to the drink; in Wisconsin, so they say, it’s usually a brandy old-fashioned sweet with a couple of olives. I may be a native, but I wouldn’t drink that! Both articles mention the menu of steaks and seafood and the relishes on a lazy Susan. I remember fighting with my sister over the corn relish that was usually one of the relishes and I remember drinking tomato juice with a spritz of lemon while my folks drank something harder.
We did not have Old Fashioneds at the Butte des Morts Supper Club, but rather Goose Island beer. It was the first time in a long time we’d seen the Chicago Goose Island beers while riding the beer trail. Marv, Elaine and I had those. Don had a Miller High Life and Gary had a Sam Adams Winter Lager.
Joan and Tim, the owners for the last six ears, are from Chicago—that accounts for the Goose Island. I asked Tim, who was taking time out from just baking a great looking pizza, who had owned the place before him. I didn’t get any names, but he rolled his eyes. “If I had known the history of this place…” he began and I’m not writing down the rest of his comment.
He knew the place began as a bar in 1925. (Hmmmm, wasn’t that in the midst of Prohibition?) That building was torn down and the current building was built in 1975 as a restaurant, so a kitchen and dining room were added.
Tim is the cook and he likes trying new recipes. Our friend Gene drives over for supper often. He says the fish fries are great. “What’s ‘house potatoes,’” I asked looking at the menu.
“Layers of sliced potatoes, heavy cream, pepper, garlic baked. No cheese.” Well, that sounds good. A picture of the place from 1957 hangs on the wall amid the usual posters for sporting events and beers. On the back bar was this clever object—a Jacob’s Ladder with colored lights moving up and down glass tubes; it makes a crackling noise too. I knew the Biblical reference to Jacob’s Ladder, but still had to check this out online at Wikipedia. Sure enough there’s a picture of one.
After talking to Joan and Tim we gathered around a table where we could look out at the rain, drink our beers and talk. It was sports talk mainly. Baseball and speculation on where Prince Fieldler would go. The Cubs? Of course, there was some Packer talk too. Marv and Don rehashed the World Series, particularly game 6.
We talked about the need for a return visit to Butte des Morts on a dry summer day. We could watch a sunset from the terrace of Tilly’s Too. On that pleasant note, we walked back to the van for a ride home on those unnumbered, unlettered roads only Gary and Elaine knew about.
Before I end writing about the places we visited in Butte des Morts, I have to make a final comment about that battle in 1716 between the French and their Indian allies and their bitter enemies, the Meskwakis (Fox). In a previous post I said the battle was not at Little Lake Butte des Morts, but rather probably on Doty Island. Well, I was wrong. According to UWO archeologist Jeff, the battle was at the Bell Site on the south shore of Big Lake Butte des Morts. “How do you know for sure?” I asked Jeff. “Because of the grenade fragments found there,” he said. Okay, I’m convinced. And the burials in that mound on Little Lake Butte des Morts? They date back 2000 years. There was none here then except the Woodlands native people.
Butte des Morts Supper Club
