Transcript
Jim & Michelle on Wisconsin Supper Clubs (Hour 1)
Nite Lite with Pete Schwaba · Fri Apr 3, 2026
From Washington to Hollywood and right back to Wisconsin.
It's Night Light with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach.
Connecting the dots on the stories shaping our world with smart takes, sharp humor, and plenty of personality.
You know, I really expected more professional behavior from you.
It's news and culture without the noise.
Yeah, come on!
Here's Pete Schwabba.
Dude.
And Greg Bach.
That was
Christmas City.
I mean, I wouldn't shake a stick at that.
And I'm getting ready to do some supper club impossibly this month.
And I know this, if I go to a supper club, there's no chasing me.
I'm just standing there because I can't move.
I've eaten so much food, you can just catch me.
I'll be standing in front of the supper club going, why did I have that third piece of asparagus?
Yeah, there was kind of, I love summer clubs.
I mean, I remember going up to my grandma's cottage up in Eagle River Three Lakes when I was a kid and we would just swim all day.
And then we would go out and they always had like, there was this place called,
Oh, it was a night of village or something like that.
It was a hotel and they had a great restaurant.
You put like that Merc's cheese.
They would serve that before.
So like, when you're a kid, and this is no disrespect to salad bars either, but like, you know, I went to, I had the opportunity last year to go up North for Civic Media.
We did some shows up there.
And we went to a wonderful, we went to Butternut.
We went to Butternut Lake, this wonderful, and I'm blanking on the name of the, of the, I think it's just the Butternut Lodge.
And they had like a salad bar, like an old school salad bar there for your fixings.
And as a kid, you think to yourself,
What am I gonna do with all of this stuff?"
And then as an adult, you're like, lettuce, cheese, not scrambled, but crushed hard-boiled eggs.
Like, yeah.
It's just like- What's the hard-boiled eggs?
Yeah, you've never seen a salad bar with it.
Oh, salad bar.
Yeah, sure.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So an egg salad, but with minus the mayonnaise.
So it's just the, it's just the hard boiled eggs crushed into, in little pieces, but you're like, when you're a kid, oh my gosh, I could eat there for decades.
And as an adult, you're like, I'm probably going to have half a salad.
So
does
very excited to
Tonight our very own Dom Lee on the ones and twos up in Madison He is prepared a brain rot quiz that tests the
Street vernacular knowledge of Pete Schwabba and myself the the the words the the the the the not the vernacular I would use that word the Speak of the kids Vocational the the youth's words I
don't
looking for
that nature.
So that's coming up in the,
to leave it at sus and
talk about the question.
Question.
Yes, we'd love to.
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So get that app.
Let us know your, your supper club go to order as well as your cocktail, mocktail, beverage of choice, whatever that may be.
And we'll talk about that more in the second hour this evening.
Are you going to like- And you might.
I'm gonna wait to ask this one because one of my go ahead Greg I was gonna say I'm gonna I have a question for you But I'm not gonna ask it until the second hour because this brings up a conversation about supper clubs But go on go
feel.
But
in
That used to be one of the intros, we should bring that.
A good hot meal at a fair price.
Yeah.
Welcome to, what's the place called again?
What's it called again?
Little River Country Club.
Welcome to Little River Country Club, a good hot meal at a fair price.
All are welcome.
All are welcome.
I saw it on NBC News.
Tiger Woods was calling after he rolled his car and endangered the lives of others second time by the way Yes, exactly Second just you know, he's making a phone call the cops come up.
They show up and he says I'm talking to the president to the cops Yeah, and that's real that happened He's already one of the biggest celebrities in the sports world, but he has to drop the president's name He didn't even say the name.
He just said the president to the cop
And the cop didn't really back off, which I like, but I don't think I liked Tiger Woods before this, but I didn't know enough about him.
He's a complete tool now.
It didn't stop them.
There's a picture on this story on CNBC.com of him being arrested in front of the camera.
And he's kind of like the position of his body.
He's got his arms behind his back getting handcuffed and he's looking off like almost as if, like they can, they can take, they can take my, my hands, but they'll never take my opioid pills.
Cause he was high.
He was absolutely high when he got pulled over they said that he was you know, he was sweating profusely He was bloodshot and glassy eyed.
He was sweating profusely Extremely dilated pupils and this is the second time he's been involved.
Well third time if you include his ex-wife and the golf club he's
been
Yeah, I just... You know, it's sort of... Like, I'm glad they handcuffed Pete Hegseth.
They'll probably fire the cops now.
But I just...
I don't know.
I want him because nothing's going to happen.
No, I mean, he's already a celebrity, but now he's got, you know, Trump's going to pardon him for future crimes.
He hasn't even committed yet, probably, even though he was driving a weapon and could have hurt other people.
He's got some oh no.
No.
No.
This is what Trump said about him.
I feel so badly He's got some difficulties.
There was an accident and that's all I know Don't talk about this dude, man, and he's and woods is stepping away from golf now to work on his mental health Of course just step away forever because you have never worked on it This is the second time get help dude and stop relying on daddy Trump to impress people nobody cares
Nicely done, Dom.
Love that song.
Dreams.
Great tune.
Welcome back to Nightlight.
I'm Pete Schwabba.
Sitting downstate for me is Greg Bach and working the board, producing the show from Madison, Dom Lee.
Coming up, folks, after the news at the bottom of the hour, the Wisconsin Supper Club Chasers will be here talking to us about their outstanding social media platform, Wisconsin Supper Club Chasers.
That's what they do.
They go to as many Supper Clubs as they can.
And they write about it so we can cherry pick which supper clubs we want to go to, Greg.
There's four teams left in the NCAA tournament.
I don't know how your brackets are doing.
Mine were toast, weekend one.
I'm not gonna win any money, but I don't care.
I still love the tournament.
We'll see if the NIL keeps affecting.
There aren't quite as many upsets the last couple years.
Someone pointed out to me, so that could be because of NIL money.
So it'll be interesting because, yeah, you've got two one seeds, you've got Michigan playing Arizona, and then you've got Illinois and Yukon.
Illinois is a three seed.
Yukon is a two seed.
So I'm excited.
I think the games will be good.
I'm excited for the championship game Monday night.
Love the NCAA tournament.
just feels like
no, we'll
Ever.
there's tons of sport happening right now the Brewers are doing fantastic there are five in one right now and I think it's funny because I posted something on Facebook earlier about the fact that various news
people or haters are saying, they're like being accused of cheating.
The brewers are being accused of cheating cause they're five in one.
And somebody, yeah, I know it's very funny, but I think it's very funny that someone wrote this.
It was kind of like a, it was a very Wisconsin response to the, the post cause he says the brewers drafted and developed the brewers have a great manager that the players love.
The brewers are a good team and have kept their core players for a few years in a row.
The brewers are five in one against two terrible teams.
I'm like,
Thank you.
That didn't, I don't feel like that helped.
I don't feel like you're on my team at all in the one, but the Brewers are doing great.
They, they're, they're playing Kansas city tonight and they're in Kansas city this evening.
It's going to be great.
And I'm actually, like I said, I'm doing comedy tonight and the headliner is a huge Royals fan.
So I guess we'll have to just not talk about things for a while.
But yeah, I'm, I'm, I love baseball.
I love baseball.
I'm so happy it's back and
It's definitely a better start than last.
The Brewers did great last season.
There was not a lot of great expectations for them.
But last year in their beginning, they were 0 and 4.
And they got like walloped by the Yankees with those tornado bats they were using last year.
And they like beat them like 20 to 2 in the second game.
But baseball's back.
The Brewers are doing great.
I have hope for my guys.
I love Pat Murphy.
And yeah, I'm just I'm looking forward to it.
And hopefully going to be getting into a game sooner than later, please, Mike.
Goodness gracious.
And I know
So not so much casual Friday, but more of just like a what's happening right now So let yesterday we talked about this the fact that now former US Attorney Attorney General Pam Bondi was let go relocated fired However, you want to see begged for her job in the Oval Office.
I don't know how you want to put that one But apparently according to MS now and this picture has been circulating her picture has already been taken off the wall Which isn't surprising when they change leadership
They do that.
But someone snapped a photo and sent it to MSNOW of Pam Bondi's photograph in the trash.
And I just was like, dang, they're not sentimental about anything over there.
of... She was the Florida Attorney General while the whole thing was going on with Epstein in the first place.
So it's like, you know, she's not... Prison.
How about prison?
Let's talk about that next week, though.
This is casual Friday.
We have our guest coming up next, and I want to get to that talk now because that is the important thing we're discussing.
If folks say
Or if you're watching the radio on the stream, drop us a stream comment and be part of the show.
And if you have a question for Jim and Michelle, that's fine too.
They're coming up next.
It's Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach at Nightlight on the Civic Media Network.
Little casual Chris Isaac there on your casual Friday here at Nightlight.
I'm Pete Schwabba sitting across the stage from Greg Bach.
Happy Friday, everybody.
Be part of the fun.
What is your favorite or your perfect?
Supper club order food and drink, please.
This is a great question because our next guests That's their that's their racket.
That's their game.
They Visit as many supper clubs as they can they've been to over 200 Wow, and they have a platform called Wisconsin Supper Club Chasers, so it I mean
We love supper clubs and that's our thing here in Wisconsin, right?
And we have
a few other
Thanks for having
So after traveling all 50 states together, on April 15th of 2022, we were visiting our 57th supper club together.
And Michelle said, let's start a page on Facebook and mostly
to keep track of the places that we then were going.
And when we were traveling all 50 states, I used to enjoy writing about different food places that we went to all across the country.
But we kind of decided to focus in on Wisconsin.
We love supper clubs.
We love visiting supper clubs.
And now we've been to, well, we were at our 220th before.
We sat down to talk with you, and actually, we don't do this very often, but we're also gonna head to our 221st after we get off the show.
So we're in 2 today, 2 in one night that we haven't been to.
So yeah, but we pay you some of them.
We've been to some of the supper clubs literally hundreds of times.
We visit supper clubs probably about three to five times a week.
So we get out pretty often and yeah, it's been fun.
We created also, we call it a guide, but it's virtually a coupon book for supper clubs a couple of years ago and now we're in our second version.
And it's something that we sell.
We call it the Wisconsin supper club dining destinations guide.
And we mostly sell it at venturewisconsin.com, but that guide has helped us.
be able to continue to do what we do.
When we go to most supper clubs, we pay our own way.
So we pay for our own travel, we pay for
our
own meals.
There are supper clubs though that do offer us.
you know meals uh you know occasionally but it's it's more of a rare occasion but get to be more and more um you know with 50 over 57 000 followers on facebook um we we get millions of views a month so a lot of people are interested in in what we're doing and it and it and it's really interesting i mean i've uh i've been traveling uh sometimes in
I'll be at a rest stop and somebody will say, hey, you're the guy.
I've actually been in a quick trip restroom and a guy.
I wasn't.
in the restroom, but I was in the restroom if you know what I mean.
And a gentleman said, hey, you're the guy.
I just saw that you were at, you know, or where are you heading?
And people are interested.
A lady last night when we were out, she said, every night I
I curl up in bed and read your posts.
I'm like, well, that's interesting.
might seem.
It's for sure.
But it is fun.
It's fun.
We enjoy it.
And you know, we keep everything that we do fun and positive.
So everything I write
is
100% positive.
I don't allow any negativity.
I allow people to comment.
But unfortunately, if there's any negative comments,
Um, I, I, you know, I encourage people to take that up with the management, you know, I'm
your own
privately, you know, not, not, not, not out there on social media.
So, but, uh, yeah, it's a lot of fun.
We, we, I mean, people, when you talk to Wisconsinites and those who are visiting, we treat supper clubs with a reverence and a tradition.
And, and you said that, you know, you had already gone to
quite a few dozen supper clubs at the point where you decided to make this, you know, a, you know, I don't want to say a job, but like you decided to put your, your experiences out to the world for people to enjoy.
What is it about supper clubs for the two of you that makes it so exciting that you've turned this into a, you know, something that you put your passion into plus, you know, going to so many a week.
I mean, you have to, there's something about it that you have to really enjoy.
Yeah, I mean, you know, fortunately or unfortunately, I live to eat and don't eat to live.
Same brother, same brother.
Is that true?
Yeah.
So I do enjoy, do enjoy eating and we do enjoy, you know, our typical supper club experience.
um we'll start out at the bar and usually for for an hour or so we'll have a couple of cocktails we'll move to a table sometimes go back to the bar but uh rarely some people do that that's you know part of their supper club experience but um you know we enjoy all food um but you know probably in the big picture of it all we enjoy the people you
know we
enjoy we enjoy the
the people that love the experience, like we love the experience.
And there's always different experiences.
I mean, sometimes it is about the food.
Other times it's about the ambience, but it's always about the people.
So it's fun to enjoy other people's company.
We've gotten to know a lot of owners.
They see what we're doing is really helpful to
all supper clubs, but the places that we go especially, I mean, there's posts that I make that, you know, hundreds of thousands of people see.
So it's really kind of interesting and fun.
fun, but we really enjoy it.
I mean, and Michelle makes some really great videos.
I'm not a videographer.
She's gotten better and better at it, but she actually also creates, she's a musician by trade.
So she's a professional piano player and singer, and she's actually
you know, we used to play with schools and she's done music out where she did like the lobby bar at the Grand Geneva, which used to be the Playboy Club.
Yeah, she did that.
But she's created a lot of the music now that we're using on our videos.
created some supper club songs and we've done a lot of fun things.
We've created some different
different clothing with different logos.
And we've done pop-up stores with that.
We've created t-shirts that have like all the supper clubs on back of the t-shirt.
And on the front, it'll say like, Wisconsin supper clubs, how many have you been to?
And, you know, we then create, you know, a fun scenario where people are able to go on the, you know, look at the back of the shirt.
And I've been to that one, that one, that one, and that one, you
can listen.
Yeah, it's really
Jim and Michelle are the Wisconsin Supper Club chasers.
They're joining us tonight on Nightlight for a few minutes.
We're talking to them about their really cool platform.
Check them out.
They're on Facebook, Instagram, and they've been over 200 Supper Clubs, and we're talking to them about their experiences.
You know, what do good Supper Clubs do right?
And what do...
If there are bad supper clubs, what don't they do right?
You don't have to name any, but have you, the ones that are successful, how are they doing that?
Is there a common thread?
You know, there probably is.
I mean, good food is probably very key to a busy supper club.
You know, people ask all the time, don't you have bad experiences?
Because I don't talk about it.
I just choose not to talk about those experiences.
We've had bad meals, bad service.
It happens occasionally.
But we try to overlook that, you know, we're all humans and we all have scenarios where we might not have a very good day.
Something stayed on the grill too long for the chef and, you know, that kind of stuff.
But, you know, we try to minimize that it happens.
But yeah, good food, good cocktails, you know, a nice bar where there's a lot of seating helps.
But we've been to a lot
places where they have a small bar and it's still a lot of fun.
Dining rooms are huge, some are small, and some of those are as popular as others, bigger or smaller.
Size doesn't matter, but I think good food and just owners that care help a lot too.
A lot of times the owners are involved in a supper club, so they're
Um, being, you know, being part of the whole thing, uh, he might be the bartender and she might be the chef or vice versa.
You know, they, they, they have some, some aspect of the business they're doing something.
So it's fun.
I can think of, we went to when I was a kid, but there's been a revival in the past few years of the supper club.
decor, mystique, the experience.
I mean, it feels like, you know, do you feel like those places are, do you feel like those places are trying?
to replicate the old school look or, and, or do you think they're paying tribute essentially?
Cause like, I see some of them like, this just looks like you're trying to look like a supper club while charging very, very expensive prices.
But then there are places out there saying, I just want to create what I went to with my parents and grandparents as a kid.
I mean, I feel like there's, it's a resurgence of the love of supper clubs with new locations opening up.
Yeah, there, there, there are new locations opening up almost even all the time next week.
We'll be visiting a place called the Conroy Modern Stock Club in Milwaukee.
That's a brand new one.
They asked us to come out.
And that's one of the examples of a supper club that asked us to come in and they'll take care of our meals because they'll know that we're going to share about their place.
And when we look at their menu, it looks like they're more of
what we would call a modern supper club,
you
know, a lot of these traditional supper clubs, you know, fortunately, I don't, I don't try to find a place that has the best prices, you know, I'm, you know, I'm fortunate that, you know, I can visit them regardless.
And, you know, in some respects, you get what you're paid for.
And then other times we've found places that, you know, my
might charge more than you would think they should be.
But I try to overlook those kind of things and look at the positive.
I look at the fun area that they created, the culture they've created, and it's a lot of fun.
And there's several clubs that we've been to that are over 100 years old, and they're fourth generation of family that's owned them.
It's actually...
a lot of fun to share with those people.
They've got crazy history that goes back to maybe mobsters, flying the licker, throwing a fish and kind
That's so great.
Our guests are Jim and Michelle from the Wisconsin Supper Club Chasers.
Follow them on various social media platforms.
Monica and Mount Horrib says definitely a salad bar with the packaged crackers, dry breadsticks, and cheese bread, a grasshopper, and possibly...
I can't read a pasta dish.
So when we come back, I'm gonna ask Jim and Michelle what their favorite supper club meal is and we'll do, they can answer our question of the night.
That's coming up next after this very short break.
Don't go anywhere.
This is Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach and Nightlight.
This is Nightlight with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach.
I'm in Christmas City, USA, Marinette, Wisconsin.
Greg is in Radio Park in Racine and Dom is holding down the fort in Madison.
It's great to have you with us tonight on this Friday, a casual Friday here on Nightlight.
And we have to tell you guys that the Brewer's game has been postponed.
Greg, I'm sorry.
I know that's a big deal for
Yeah.
All right.
So our guests at the moment are Jim and Michelle.
They are the Wisconsin Supper Club chasers.
They're joining us now from a hotel room somewhere in Wisconsin.
We won't say where, but they are.
They've already been to a supper club today.
They're going out to another one tonight.
That is dedication.
I want to ask you guys our question of the night is what is your perfect supper club meal?
Like what do you typically order?
or what is the quintessential supper club meal and cocktail?
So, um, you know, I think a lot of people would say fish fry on Friday, uh, prime rib on Saturday, uh, broasted chicken on Sunday and, you know, some type of steak, uh, any of those days or other days of the week.
Um, fortunately we love all food.
except that I always used the saying, my mom loves liver and I don't care for it.
But which one of us is right, which is why I keep the page positive and don't say that I know better than what you know is what you like.
But fortunately, we eat a lot of different foods when we're at supper clubs.
um you know we'll we'll enjoy a filet or uh you know rib eye um and probably prefer a filet but that's not you know for everybody um but we'll do we'll do fish fry on fridays but you know they may have a special dish like a pasta dish or you know sometimes some of the supper clubs might have a an italian type thing but uh you know we
We'll eat all different foods.
And I think that's part of the attraction to the page is a lot of people come to the page.
They're not going to always see us eating primary every night.
And I heard your caller called in and talked about a salad bar.
Of course, I love a salad bar as much
as
anybody does, but it doesn't necessarily in the world of supper clubs today define a supper club as to whether they have a salad bar or not.
Usually, they at least have a super salad choice, but it's nice if they have a super and salad bar.
It's kind of nice.
We're relish trays, a big one.
People love to get a...
or relish tray with their meal.
I would say I do as well, but not every supper club serves those.
Some of them have gotten away from them.
You know, there were some issues with salad bars and relish trays and some other things, you know, through COVID and whatnot.
But, you know, our perfect meal is probably every meal.
I mean, it's really hard.
I love
I know.
But you know what we try to do?
We try to order different things.
So I'll order one thing short or something else.
If I get soups, she'll get salad.
We try to ask if they have maybe a homemade dressing, if it's not a salad bar.
So we try to get different things.
We'll get an appetizer.
We'll get dessert sometimes.
I was on track last a bunch of supper clubs that I've been to where we ordered three meals and even one time four meals.
so that we can show off.
You know, a lot of the different food that's, that's at a place to, you know, we have a lot of fun when we go and, you know, and I'll joke around and say, don't judge me.
It's your fault because you guys want to see, you know, all these different foods this place serves.
So, you know, I want
supper club.
Yeah, we hear that a lot.
Yeah, we hear that a lot.
And I always say, uh, you know, come and finance us and we'll be happy
Yeah, we gotta get a big corporate sponsor, you know, brought to you by whatever, you know.
We also live on our leftovers.
We do, yeah.
We never, we never waste
anything
from a couple of nights ago.
We had a ribeye and this morning she, she put it together with some eggs and some roasted vegetables and fresh roasted vegetables and turned it into a whole another, you know, a nice breakfast this morning.
Can we never waste anything?
That's great.
Definitely the Rat Pack music is what I'm excited about when they have it, and I'm really excited if there's live music.
That's what I want to hear.
You don't get that a lot, but when there is live music, I make sure we sit by it.
trio, and it just
We were there when you were there, maybe.
If he's such a good vibe.
Yes,
There you
and Michelle.
Thank you so
make it a bigger event.
Yeah, when you get a studio together, definitely.
Yeah.
Thank you.
We'll come back.
Yeah, we'll come back.
Maybe enjoy some old fashions or something together on the air.
Yeah.
We had me at
Perfect.
Awesome.
much.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Have a good night.
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the
to
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