Whenever I visit another city, I always act like I'm from there, so the cab driver doesn't rip me off, I'm always like,
Yeah, it's good to be back home.
I hear where I grew up.
Yeah, here on Tokyo.
Everything looks familiar because I grew up here.
Oh, where do I need to go?
Driver, I need to go to my old stomping grounds.
That would be the holiday in.
And the address appears to be the pound sign.
So step on it.
It's a little farther down the line.
You're just a heartache in this night.
Won't you keep my heart from breaking it?
It's only for a very short time.
Layin' in between a heart.
No one did it really smart.
You're the only fool.
No one did anything for you.
Layin' in another night.
Makein' better life for pride.
That's what I have to do.
You need to keep me away from you.
Hit 707 at WRTN Radio.
Thanks for joining us here on a Wednesday, Saturday to Monday.
Tomorrow's Wednesday.
Tuesday morning.
Thank you.
We're going to talk food.
Actually, we're going to talk the buildings the food is in.
Wisconsin Supper Club, Ron Field is here.
And thank you for joining us today.
Thanks for having me, Don.
Now, I got to ask you right at the get-go because everyone
when I told you people you're going to be on, they said,
well, what's a Supper Club?
Is it like a fancy diner?
No, it's not a fancy diner.
You probably have been asked in some million times
what a Supper Club is.
I know what it is in my head, but I can translate it into words.
Yeah, it's, I've never come up with the perfect, you know,
three word answer for it, but it's,
the Supper Club is a family-owned family often lives on the premises.
They have different hours in the summer, different hours in the winter.
They're probably not open as much.
Some only still take cash, only.
Yeah, you have to check, especially if you're heading up north.
And the food is made from scratch.
You know it when you see it kind of thing, right?
That's it.
Yeah, it's my head.
I just can't put it in the words.
Exactly.
So other people have like real strict definitions that include
relish trays and so on, but those are, those get kind of limiting.
That's exactly what it's going to say.
When you come out to a Supper Club before you order,
they actually put like this relish tray out there.
It's got like four different little, well, some do.
Some do.
Yeah.
But once I've been, I've always done that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Now there's one right near us is the Hobnob.
Right.
That's a real fancy Supper Club.
That looks like, you know what it does?
It looks like you were going out in the 1940s or 50s to a Supper Club.
Definitely.
And the architecture is more California-based than Wisconsin or Midwest.
And they have little booths at the Hobnob where you can have a private booth for dinner.
And you'll know it when you see it.
And the food is just great at these Supper Clubs.
And some of them have entertainment, some don't.
I went to one in Hazel Green.
It was so crowded.
Everybody wanted to get into that one.
And I mentioned the name.
I can't think of that.
Three mile.
Yeah.
We went down there when we were doing our Mississippi River trip.
We stopped by there because it was.
We got your book.
Yeah.
And so we went there and one in the Greendale.
We went to...
Steak out or Joey Gerard's?
Joey Gerard's.
Yeah.
He went there.
And so...
But it's just a nice evening out.
It's not stepping back in time per se.
Well, some is because you don't see TV screens or something like...
You know, but it really feels like it sometimes made me not with the price so much.
You know what I just found in here when we took the book with us?
My wife made an itinerary of our travels.
Oh, see?
And it was still in the book here.
Yeah, when we were going to Minnesota and we were going through Wisconsin.
Yeah.
There are some supper clubs in Milwaukee.
There's not the only one that, you know, you can go all over the place.
Oh, yeah.
Tell us about some of the ones around town in Milwaukee.
Big people can go too.
The five o'clock steakhouse used to be corpers on 24th and state.
Classic supper club.
You order at the bar.
That's another feature of a supper club is when you sit down at the bar,
the waiter will come over, take your order.
And then when your table's ready, you're seated.
You don't do it the other way around, you know.
They, the great cocktails over there at the five o'clock,
they roll the steaks through the crowd on carts.
Because they're that big.
You know, the plates are big and the steaks are huge.
And you do get a relish tray there and you get bread and honey and butter.
Yes.
Yes, you get the relish tray there with the honey.
And then trying to think, you know, Jackson Grill on 38th and Mitchell,
a classic little tiny little supper club only about 30 seats.
That place is kind of like, well, it used to be like stepping back in time.
Now they have a TV over the bar.
But, you know, dobes in St. Francis, another good one,
they have a really nice lazy Susan that they make homemade meatballs
and cucumber salad and stuff that's complimentary when you sit down.
Yeah.
And again, you'll know it when you see it, when you go in these places.
A friend of mine used to carry this ad around with him in the wallet.
It wasn't a supper club.
I don't think it was in Kiwaskam.
Is there a supper club in Kiwaskam?
I hope this wasn't it because when I tell you the ad.
Okay.
Well, tell me the.
It had a picture of a little cartoon character and said,
our steaks are as big as a toilet seat.
And he carried the ad because nobody would relieve him.
And I saw the ad.
And it was a picture of a toilet seat with a little character pointing to it.
And they said, our steaks are as big as a toilet seat.
And it was in Kiwaskam.
I forget the name of the place.
But do you really want to eat at the place where your steaks are as big as a toilet seat?
And who wants to go and compare it?
How do you let me take that into the.
Yeah, let's take it into the.
Just to see a truth in advertising here.
So I hope it's not a supper club.
Yeah, it's probably not around anymore if it is.
So now it's what's constant.
Is it something about Wisconsin or is the other supper clubs all around the country?
Well, let's.
The historical thing was in the 50s and 60s,
supper clubs were all over the United States.
And they were like with Wisconsin supper clubs that we have now.
The food was all American cuisine, steaks, chops, seafood, and so on.
Wisconsin ended up hanging on to them because of all the recreational activities
that draws people from all over to Wisconsin.
So you'd go to these remote cabins.
And of course, there's a supper club nearby that you go to.
There are supper clubs now across the country,
but they're completely different.
There are definitions are in the South.
They have Sunday supper clubs that will be at somebody's house.
And it's kind of a membership thing.
In some dry counties in like Arkansas and Alabama,
you have to join a supper club in order to order a drink.
If you know what dry counties are,
you can't serve alcohol in a dry county.
It's dry.
And so they have a lot down South is a lot of places where dry.
Yeah, I know we were once, we were taking a trip down the Florida when I was a kid
and my father wrote of the whiskey sour and the lady said, dry county.
And he said, what?
That's a dry county.
He said, I don't understand what you're saying.
I said, my mother said, he's saying it's a dry county.
But to the Southern accent, he couldn't understand.
He said, what does that mean?
I can't get a whiskey sour because we don't serve alcohol in this county.
Yeah.
Why was you kidding?
He was a guy coming from New York.
And he said, what do you mean I can't get a drink?
And he said, no, it's a dry county.
So, but we don't have dry counties up here.
No.
So, you know, the drinks at Wisconsin supper clubs are cocktails,
and especially the brandy old fashioned.
Yeah.
The state just made it their official state cocktail.
Really?
Yeah.
That's something that was long overdue.
I can't get the potholes fixed, but we got an official state.
The brandy Alexander?
Not the brandy old fashioned.
The brandy old fashioned is the official drink of Wisconsin.
I didn't know that.
I know the official cocktail.
You think it would be something with beer in it, but I guess not.
Maybe there is on some other category.
I went to a restaurant and I have to check the book.
I never checked the book on this one.
It was up at Little Bohemia.
Yeah.
There's a restaurant there.
This is the Dillinger restaurant.
Right.
And the best soup I ever had in my life was wild mushroom soup.
And I wanted to make a meal out of it.
Because you bring me like two more bowls of it.
But, you know, I wasn't going to make a pig out of myself.
It was a beautiful restaurant, overlooking, you know, a small lake,
and so forth.
You know the one I'm talking about in Little Bohemia?
That's not a separate club.
Technically, people call it a separate club.
Yeah.
It's more of a tourist attraction because of the bullet holes in the wall.
Right.
The windows.
They actually still have the bullet holes in the window where Dillinger's shot
out with the police.
But, yeah, you can't eat there.
And so it's worth checking out.
It's beautiful trees surrounded by trees.
And, you know, as you drive into the, you used to be a lodge.
Right.
They actually filmed the movie, public enemies of Johnny Depp.
They used that as part of the set.
So, yeah, the historical part of it, Dillinger had a shoot out there with the feds.
And as you said, you can still see the bullet holes.
And enjoy your soup.
Watching the bullet hole.
But when you go to that place, you can imagine what was going on there back in the 1930s.
Oh, yeah.
You John Dillinger.
And here you are.
Could you bring my steak a little more medium.
And, oh, yeah.
So, she thought we was killed right over there.
Actually, there was somebody killed it.
In this invite standard.
It was killed in that shootout.
Yeah.
Dillinger escaped.
Yeah.
But the in this invite standard lost his life in that one.
Yeah.
Well, it was rough in some of those, you know, up north.
The rules were made to be broken, really.
There were these places that became supper clubs, these dance halls and these roadhouses.
We're pretty rowdy places back in the.
Well, last night on PBS, we actually had the producers of the PBS show.
It was about Al Capone and his connection to Wisconsin.
It was on Channel 10 last night.
The producers were on the air with us.
And Capone, he never did.
But he wanted to buy retirement property up in northern Wisconsin.
You don't think of him as like retiring at, you know, on an easy chair somewhere.
And he did retire.
He retired in Alcatraz is where he retired.
But yeah, that's, I'll come.
A lot of the bad guys wanted to go to Wisconsin to get away.
Because it was easier to get away because, you know, they didn't have the transportation they do today.
But it was convenient for things coming in from Canada as well.
It would just fly over Lake Superior and drop a bunch of cases of booze.
He had a place in Corderade that his brother Ralph ran.
Yeah.
And, uh, near Hayward.
And, um, they always say Al was there all the time.
No, it's it, you know, he was too busy in Chicago dealing with evading taxes.
Exactly.
Well done a second.
Ralph, Ralph, Ralph, Ralph, Ralph Capone is here.
Uh, Ralph Caleb is here, author of him.
We'll get to the block.
Wisconsin's supper clubs.
They'll have him right here.
The Civic Media Station WRJ on hometown radio refreshed in 719.
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Good morning.
Clotting with a high near 40 degrees today.
Clotting lows around 31 tonight.
Sunday tomorrow with a high near 42 right now.
Clotting in 37.
Ron Thiel is my guest.
Author of Wisconsin's supper clubs.
Big heavy coffee table book.
A lot of these big books.
The, um, we got this years ago.
And you said it was the first printing.
How many printings have there been?
11 or 12.
And now there's an updated version that just came out of that book.
It's called the second edition.
And it really is expanded and updated.
I added 15 new clubs.
I visited 24 from that book.
And added a couple more things.
So it's, it's worth getting, especially if you're taking it around to the supper club.
And having people sign their photos and stuff.
So now it's the most up to date current.
So how many from the original book or not there?
And how many from the original book have been created?
Sure.
Um, I wrote the obituaries for 11.
Oh, don't call them that.
Well, they're, you know, I was sad to see them go over the, over the 10 years, uh, 10, 11 years.
Um, there were nine.
And then we were going to print with the book and two more clothes suddenly.
So, uh, it was unfortunate.
But, um, so yeah, then there's the 24.
There's 17 other ones that we just updated their profiles.
And then I added 15 that are worthy destinations and hidden gems to go.
Are more being more people opening supper clubs or, or whatever they are.
It's kind of a little bit of both.
There are people that are reopening older clubs.
And, uh, there's a new club was just built in Deleven called the village supper club.
They took the name of the previous club that was there.
But they tore the building down and put up this pretty magnificent structure.
I was just there a couple of weeks ago, uh, for their soft open.
And it overlooks Lake Deleven.
And, uh, it was great.
I, the food was great.
And we're, now I go out there and we say Lake Lawn Resort.
Yeah.
It's occasionally so.
Kind of on the other side of Lake Lawn.
Oh, it's on the other side of the lake.
Yeah.
All right.
So we got to go out there.
You kind of go around the eastern side and then you hit the village supper club.
It's in a residential area, but they have a big parking lot.
And it's open now and it's really wonderful.
Was COVID not kind to these restaurants?
COVID did some of them in.
You know, it wasn't COVID so much.
It was the supply disruption.
And the supply chain and the lack of staff.
So everybody made it through COVID.
And in fact, a lot of suburb owners called me, uh, as they were shut down to see what was going on.
What other clubs were doing and, uh, just wanted to talk.
Because everybody was kind of upset and freaked out.
Um, but it was later when, you know, they, like I say, lack of staff.
And then the supply chain, they couldn't get this, you know, any more or it,
the price had tripled or whatever, you know, uh, it's gotten a little better now.
It's still, they're still looking for staff at some of these places.
But, uh, it's been a lot better.
And the customers have returned in a huge way.
So customers are pretty loyal.
If they find a good restaurant, they, they come back again.
They'll stand in line and wait.
Yeah.
And Hazel Green, it was packed in that place.
But the service was great.
I mean, as many people that were in there, we didn't have to wait.
I mean, you got your little, we got our relished tray with our four little things
or five little cups on it and comes with the cottage cheese and all this stuff
that you might want.
And that comes immediately when you sit down on a separate club.
That's the first thing you put on your table and you get to look in.
I think I had a steak.
You know, I don't have too many steaks anymore.
So when I go there, that's what I'm going to have.
Well, it was known for their, uh, turtle.
They would actually go out to the Mississippi.
Oh, don't say so.
I just have pet turtles.
Well, they weren't, they weren't the cute pet ones.
These were the snapping turtles that would bite your hand off.
So, uh, I actually tried it.
I tried deep fried turtle.
It's just like chicken, huh?
No, it tasted, it was like turkey, like dark meat turkeys.
Oh, you know, I was still people.
I actually had to kill my own food.
I mean, because I couldn't bring myself to do it.
As long as somebody else did it, I'll have a hamburger in the steak.
But if you told me, there's the cow, what are you going to do?
Yeah.
I'll have a salad.
Thank you.
Well, that's, you know, and that's something about separate clubs is they're not vegetarian friendly.
I mean, they can usually accommodate whatever you want.
Yeah.
But the, the menus don't normally have any, you know, they're, I see, I see it more and more now
where they'll have something decent to offer.
But I was a vegetarian for 12 years and I used to get somebody would just pour out a can of peas on a plate
and hand it to me.
That would be my dinner.
It's a guy in the book holding up a slab of beef.
That's it.
That's his shorts is, yeah.
And the size of like a human leg.
Well, our body.
I mean, that's, that's a lot of separate clubs cut their own steaks.
So they, they run it through on the bandsaw and then they hand trim.
So you, you get a steak that's, you know, nice and thick, yeah.
But yeah, there they all laid out for people to go chow down on.
I told people they were going to be hungry after this program.
Sure.
And I'm looking at, yeah, right.
They all have bars in them like sit down bars where you can actually eat at the bar if you want.
They'll serve you sometimes.
Sometimes you can.
Sometimes they don't.
Now, that's shafers that you're looking at.
They burned down in 2015.
And unfortunately, they didn't rebuild the supper club.
And they had the best fried chicken there.
They used to fry their chicken and lard.
That's probably what did him in.
No, you know, it was ironic because he, if you turn the page, there's some flaming shots there.
Well, one more page then.
And then they went and burned down.
Not because of flaming shots, but it's the fire started in the kitchen.
Superclubs have a lot of fires because of the grease up in the kitchen and the build up and old wooden structures.
And so a lot of supper clubs have had fires.
Maple tree in McFarlane just had one about a bow in 2022 and they just reopened last year.
So it doesn't permanently close the place.
It's kind of sad, though, when a restaurant, but when he business burns down because sometimes doesn't pay to rebuild.
It's too expensive insurance coverage.
Some of it, but not all of it.
Ron Fial is here and we're talking about Wisconsin supper clubs.
We're going to talk about some of your favorites around the state.
I know it's tough to pick out favorites, but we're going to force you to do it.
All right.
Some of your favorites we're going to talk about.
Right now, though, please to welcome CCM pop star Lauren Dagle to the Wisconsin state fair made stage on Friday, August 9th.
And if you'd like to go see Lauren Stagle on stage, Friday, August 9th, give us a call right now at 262 minutes.
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You want to go see Lauren Dagle at the Wisconsin state fair Friday, August 9th, right in the heart of summer.
Give us a call 262 634 9756 262 634 WRJN.
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It sounds so far away, August, but it's not that far away.
Ron Feele is here.
You know, now that we're having a Sunday sky tomorrow with a high year 42,
which someone's almost here.
All right. I'm in shorts already.
Yeah.
I keep telling people 24 inches of snow on Groundhog Day 13 years ago.
It ain't over till itself.
Yeah, you never know.
Yeah, 735, 736.
Ron is here because he is the author of Wisconsin supper clubs.
I have first edition one, but you say there are other editions out there now.
Could you ask to be updated all the time?
Well, the supper clubs come and go.
Yeah, there's actually four books in total.
So this is the first of four.
The second one was called another round.
And that has 50 more supper clubs.
That's clever. Another round.
Yeah.
Well, that's why the first one's called an old-fashioned experience.
You know, play on that.
And then another round with 50 more.
And then the third book is a history of supper clubs.
And the fourth book is the second edition of the first book,
which is the updated and expanded version of the book you have right now.
So you said mom was the first edition, very valuable.
And you scribbled all over it.
Yeah.
I didn't want that.
I drew my stashes on people.
And so civic media, which owns the stations,
owns radio stations all over the entire state of Wisconsin.
There's no way you can go in the state and not be in your civic radio,
civic media radio station on the dial.
So we're covering the state all the time.
So no matter where you travel, you'll, you'll be able to go to a supper club.
Give us some of your favorites around the state.
Now, these are not your absolute favorites.
You know, play favorites.
But some of the ones you, you know, have been to and you think people should go to.
And that if, if you've never been there, is to go to Shnala in Lake Dalton,
just outside the delts.
They're only open May through the end of October.
So just about six months.
And there, there is a line usually.
And the weight can be up to about four, four and a half hours.
However, they have four bars.
They have an appetizer kitchen.
So while you're waiting, you can get drinks and food.
Some people actually tailgate in the parking lot while they're waiting.
Really?
Because they get a buzzer.
And then they just open, Shnala just opened their beach bar.
And so you, you're right on the beach and of a mirror lake.
And it's a beautiful location.
It's worth going at least once to visit.
The food is really good as well.
But that's a great place to go.
Now, there is a restaurant right there on the strip in the Delts,
called the Burning Embroidery Embers, something like that.
Is that not a separate club, is it?
Yeah, you know, you know what I'm talking about.
Yeah.
I, the place I like is the Dalbar across the street.
And Dalbar is a very historic building.
And has some great cocktails, some really great upscale food.
So that's another option to go to in the Dal's area.
I'm just looking here.
I go to the Buckhorn in Milton a lot.
And they're on Lake Koshkanan.
So if you want to lake view, they have that.
And they're open year round.
They also do lobster boils from May through October.
It's like the door county fish boils, but they use lobster.
And you get a whole lobster and you get all the sides with it and wine.
And you don't have to worry about wearing a beer bib because everybody's wearing a bib.
So you don't, everybody looks funny.
But it's a lot of fun.
And people take the pictures of the boil over and everything.
And that's in Milton, you say.
In Milton, yeah.
And let's see.
Where else?
Where in the state, like you want to go way up North?
Yeah, let's go way up as far as you can go.
Let's go to Dreamland in South Range, it's outside of Superior.
And Dreamland, it's been there for a hundred years now.
And the owners and different owners obviously now.
But they have, they serve lobster.
They serve what they call their poor man's lobster, which is deep fried turkey breast.
They batter it and fry it and give you butter and you dip it in butter.
That is a poor man's lobster.
What about door county, anything in door county?
Yeah, door county, you've got the English in, you've got Alexander's.
There used to be the Greenwood, I understand they're closed now.
I don't know what they're going to do with that place, but that was a classic one.
Are these places pricey?
Some are, some are more, a little more budget friendly, but really depends.
And in some cases, you kind of want to pay more because you're going to get better quality of something.
If you're paying $20 for a stake, you know, the quality you're going to get is not going to be that good.
If you're paying 50, you're probably going to, you know, get a better cut.
Let me just piping with this quick story.
When I was growing up in New York, there was a chain called TADS, TADS.
Have you heard of them?
Yep.
TADS takes 99 cents stakes.
And I used to go in there to get a stake at my father.
So, you know, you're really not getting a stake for a say.
But for 99 cents, and I was a teenager, you know, 14 years old, it's going to TADS stay.
You got a baked potato and a stake for 99 cents.
Yeah.
That must have been some cut of beef.
Still had the marks from the horse race.
Oh, please.
Come on.
I thought it was real meat.
Okay.
So, let's go to the west side of the state where we go to Eau Claire and La Crosse in that area.
People go vacationing out there by Mississippi.
Yeah.
Indian head, supper club in Balsam Lake.
There's Rockies in Stoddard, just south of La Crosse.
It's a great little place.
They're known for their deep fried cheese curds.
It's just a great friendly little place.
And Stoddard is a tiny little town on the Great River Road there.
And the views of the river are right across the street.
And Sullivan's is on the river up near Trempolo.
What did that?
Minakwa Park Falls area.
Minakwa, yeah.
That's a big vacation.
I would pines for seasons in Arbivita.
There's a whole bunch of places in that general area of pub and prime, blink bounties.
You could throw a rock and hit a supper club.
A few feet, clear view.
There's a whole bunch of places up there.
Wow.
You know, I'm starving already.
So, what if you go out to the way way up north to Hurley in that area, anything up there?
Sure.
Kimball in, in Hurley, just outside of Hurley.
Hurley itself, nothing too much.
Because Hurley still kind of got the strip clubs and the bar, you know, the kind of crazy bars.
The people in Iron Mountain, next star, like, don't go to Hurley.
But it still has that reputation of being kind of wild.
But never been there.
No, it's not a wild have version.
So, I've never been there, Hurley.
I've been there during the day and it's not so wild.
So, maybe at night, what about Eagle Wisconsin?
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
There's some supper clubs in the Eagle area, the White Birch.
I like the fact he's got these.
He's not looking at the book.
He's actually remembering his name.
Yeah.
Well, White Birch isn't in the book.
Eddie Bees, White Birch, and Chanticleer Inn.
There's some pockets of places like you were talking about Hazel Green.
There's about four supper clubs just in that Hazel Green area.
Yeah.
Why the concentration in the Hazel Green?
It's not really a tourist destination.
No, it's not.
And you're on the west side of the state and across the river is Dubuque.
And more people are over there.
But it's just the Wisconsin supper clubs.
People come over to visit them.
And when I talk to the club owners, they say people go to all the clubs.
So, they're not competing against each other.
They just on Tuesday, they go to chops call in on Wednesday.
They're at three mile house.
And then they go to country heights.
And so, there's even a supper club in Illinois in East Dubuque called Timmermans.
And they're up on a hill.
They have a beautiful view looking out over the west.
We did the Mississippi travel.
We traveled the entire Mississippi river.
And that's where we ran into the Hazel Green one.
My wife looked and said to you, there's a separate club there.
Let's go up dinner.
And we just have a stumble upon it.
But it's in your book.
What about the Madison area?
Madison.
Oh, yeah.
There's a tornado club.
That's a must.
That's down right by the Capitol.
And as Henry Dohn, their owner, says he's on the last little bit of skid row in Madison.
Because of all the bars that are there.
But it's a great place.
That's like stepping back in time.
Great hand-muddled, brandy old fashions and a nice big tumbler.
They do have a relish tray, but it's not a tray.
It's in a glass.
And sometimes people think that's a decoration and they don't eat it.
And I explain, no, no, go ahead and eat that.
Everything's there for you.
We went to, I believe it was a separate club years ago in Fiendsville,
Mequon Fiendsville area.
Do you know what I'm talking about?
Maybe Range Line in.
We had, yeah, we had an office party there.
And I remember the relish trays coming out.
And I remember the window overlooking a small little lake,
whatever it was up there in Mequon Fiendsville area.
And I can't remember the name of the place.
Well, Bartolotta's actually had a second Joey Gerrard's up there.
They had two when they first opened, one in Greendale, one in Mequon, right on the river.
Yeah, and that was it.
I'm sure it was.
And it was just a wonderful restaurant.
And I had just come to Wisconsin shortly after I came here in our radio station at a party.
And I said to my honor, they said, no, which is having a party up there.
Oh, okay.
I thought it was for me.
Well, we come back from the break in a little while.
I want you to somebody who really has never gone through a separate club before once the full experience.
And you know, I'm just thinking, if you watch some of these movies from the 1940s on TV,
where they're all dressed up in tuxedos and the gangsters are going out,
not the gangster, but the people are going out to these clubs,
the women dressed to the nines and gowns.
And that's what a, that was a separate club.
They used to go out because supper is something you eat at 10 o'clock at night, right?
Dinner, you serve at six o'clock, supper is you eat at 10 o'clock.
And it was like at post theater supper, you know?
Right.
Yeah.
And when I used to go to Broadway musicals, now I never went out to the expensive places
we used to get a little bite to eat afterwards.
But that's it.
You go to a separate club in New York City.
Right.
And there must be a ton of them in there.
I don't know if they're there anymore, but back, you know, back in the hay days,
people used to get dressed up in tuxedos and evening gowns.
They go out to eat at 10 o'clock at night.
I mean, it sounds odd to me because I'm in bed by, you know, 738 o'clock.
Well, they, they would stay up all night, you know, back then.
Even supper clubs in Wisconsin used to be open until one, two in the morning.
No more.
And now they're closing at eight, nine.
Really?
Yeah.
Oh, the fun times are gone.
Yeah.
So is there a place in Wisconsin?
Apparently, I named all these cities and you can name a supper club in those cities.
Sure.
So there must be all over the state.
I've never realized there were that many of them.
Well, I have a supper club list on Wisconsin supper clubs.com.
And there's over 250 supper clubs.
Yeah, give the, yeah, give the address again.
Yeah, Wisconsin supper clubs.com.
There's, like I say, the club list is on there that people use.
And it's divided up into the five regions of the state that my books are.
And it's alphabetical.
And you can look up the club, click on their link and call them up.
Now, also Facebook.
You got it.
There are some, I'm belong to Wisconsin supper club, not belong.
But I go on this one's kinds of supper club, Facebook page.
But there's a couple of them.
There's several.
Yeah.
There's where people ask for recommendations.
Yeah.
Mine is more of news and some people ask where to go.
But it's not meant for that.
It's called just Wisconsin supper clubs.
And here's something that Facebook really did, which I think is bad.
They started having people take pictures of their food.
Every time you turn on Facebook, somebody's food.
Food never translates well into a photograph.
Unless it's like your pictures professionally done, then they look good.
But people suffer.
Oh, picture of their food.
Guck.
Ron Faeola is here, author of Wisconsin supper clubs.
749 at WRJN Radio.
Old town radio refreshed.
Civic media stations.
They row here.
I don't move.
You get a hold on you believe it.
Like the weather.
Before you know it, you'll be on your knees.
She's an easy lover.
You take your heart, but you won't be there.
She's like the weather.
And I'm just trying to make you see.
She's the kind of girl you dream of.
Dream of keeping hold up.
Better forget it.
You'll never get it.
She will play around and leave you.
Leave you when it's seen.
Ron Faeola is here.
We're talking about Wisconsin supper clubs all around the state.
I was surprised to see how many there were.
And I have this coffee table book we got because we traveled the state.
We left this in a hotel room and they want to send it back to me.
They said you have to come get us 200 miles away.
I said, I think I'm over 200 miles, pick it up.
They said, we can't mail to you.
I called the corporate office.
They said, it will be in the mail this afternoon.
I said, well, I'll pay the freight on it.
They said, you don't have to pay the freight.
We'll pay for it.
I said, but your hotel manager said they wouldn't do it.
He wanted to keep it for himself, probably.
Who lazy to mail it back?
You don't want this book to go away.
It's such a wonderful book.
You know, in this book, you have pictures of the people who own the place.
It's just very important because these are not chain places.
These are individually owned restaurants and people.
It's very important to them to keep up a certain image of the restaurant.
You've got the signs outside.
You've got the seating here before anybody came in.
You've got the stakes on the grill.
And so if you get this book, you can pick out a Wisconsin supper club.
And know all about it before you get there.
Exactly.
And again, my wife and I get books autograph.
We didn't get this one pictures autographed in it.
But we did in some of our other books.
I just did one because there's too much of a coffee table book.
And it's very nice.
And you visited every single one of these supper clubs around the state.
How long did it take you?
Well, each book was a little different.
That one I had three months.
And that was a pretty quick turnaround.
They wanted the manuscript in three months.
And so I was sitting the road fast and furious in 2012 for the first book.
And luckily enough, the spring of 2012 was a really warm spring.
Every day was like in the 80s, which was crazy, you know, in March.
But it helped because it helped me get around the state and do what I was, you know,
go to the clubs and get all the photos.
And it's a lot of work.
People say, oh, you get to hang out.
No, it is a lot of work to put together.
And there's text in the book.
Right.
So I'm just photographs.
Right.
So I take the photo.
I get there about an hour.
So before they open, I take photos.
I do the interviews.
Look at this.
Oh, yeah.
I get that.
Prime rib.
Prime rib.
Yeah.
Now you had to be there when these, first of all, there's nobody in the restaurant usually.
There's some pictures.
There's people.
Yeah, there's people.
But you had to get pictures of the food.
Yeah.
Which they had to prepare.
So because everybody wanted to get in the book, I'm sure.
I mean, there's no people.
I had some people that turned me down.
Really?
Yeah.
Why would they do that?
I don't know.
They were immortalized in a book.
Well, for the first book, a lot of them didn't understand.
I had a movie that was out just prior to that, but right on PBS.
Right.
Yeah.
And so convincing people that you're going to be in my book and it's not going to cost you
anything, you know, what's the catch?
So the places they'd agreed, yeah, then they would, they'd make some, a bunch of food.
The funny part was they would put four dishes out, you know, prime ribs, shrimp, and lobster.
And then they'd say, well, eat them.
Well, there's no way I could even.
And I didn't want to try everything and then have them just throw it away.
So I'd say, you know, who's going to have some of this?
So what I did for the second book is I had the supper clubs invite good customers or family
to come in and eat the food to be on camera eating the food.
So I got to try some, but they also, you know, other people got to benefit too from that.
What kind of camera do you use to take these pictures because they're magnificent?
Yeah, it's a professional.
That one was a Canon.
I bought a new one for the fourth book, another Canon.
I have an old Nikon film camera too at home.
You know what?
And another man, I have a whole bunch of cameras at home, but.
What I was going to say is it's not only the inside that you like, you like to see the outside.
Like, there's one here.
It looks so rustic looking.
Marty's placed north.
Yeah.
Where's that?
Yeah.
Yeah.
They just closed unfortunately.
Aww.
That was a really beautiful place on spider lake.
And now why did it close?
You know?
No, there was a sudden.
There were close.
The owners have also have a Mexican place in Managua.
And maybe they're trying to sell the supper club, but.
I love the North Woods.
My wife and I traveled through there.
Um, what we did was we were going to a Wisconsin broadcaster's association function.
And she said, why don't we take the weekend and just travel the entire state.
And we'll wind up in Madison at the end.
And we did that.
Yeah.
And you come across some really nice places.
You don't count enough.
She actually does when my wife puts us together a trip for us.
She does two weeks worth of research where we're going.
So this is, to me, it's like, oh, really?
We're going to that place?
To her.
Yes.
So we can just pick this place out of the air.
I want you to give the websites again.
Give the website the Facebook page.
I want all that information right now so people can hear it.
WisconsinSupperclubs.com.
And on Facebook, just go to Wisconsin supper clubs page.
Now the book Wisconsin supper clubs.
You get an Amazon.
You probably get a lot of place.
Oh, yeah.
All the bookstores.
There's a lot of gift shops.
And even all the Sunday's markets in the Milwaukee area have really.
Yeah.
But your barns and nobles here in Racine and Brookfield and Madison.
Bam too.
Yeah.
Now, can you get the DVD of the PBS special?
It's still on Amazon.
I still have copies up there just to defeat.
There were people selling news copies for like $50, $60.
Whoa.
I reprinted it with my fish drive movie together.
Because I saw the PBS.
I saw it was on PBS.
Yeah.
So it's still available.
It's like 20 bucks.
Do they ever rerun it on Channel 10?
No.
They don't have the license anymore.
But they had it for several years.
So.
Yeah.
It was great.
I love seeing that.
And I love having you in here because I'm starving now.
And to me, it's lunchtime.
To everybody else.
It's a breakfast time.
Exactly.
And you get up at four o'clock in the morning.
This is lunchtime.
Ron Faeola.
Thank you very much for coming in here.
Thank you.
Yeah.
This was really enjoyable.
Oh, I'd love that.
I got to have you back sometime.
We got to talk more.
We got to talk about the individual restaurants in this book.