Wisconsin Supper Clubs: One For The Road

Step into a Wisconsin supper club and you step into a world of tradition, reinvention, and wonderfully unlikely history.

Photographer Ron Faiola takes us inside more than 40 of these distinctly Wisconsin establishments, exploring a dining tradition that remains largely unknown beyond the state. There are common hallmarks—old-fashioned interiors, Old Fashioneds made with brandy, hearty food, relish trays, and long meals meant for lingering—but every club has its own character and its own story.

Faiola, who has spent years photographing and documenting Wisconsin’s supper clubs, profiles each one through its history, owners, staff, and menu, accompanied by 8 to 12 photographs of the food, interiors, and people. This is not a cookbook: there are no recipes. Instead, it is a portrait of a type of place, a tradition, and the people who have kept both alive.

And what stories they are. The Britain House Supper Club in Waupun sits just blocks from the Waupun Correctional Institution, in a building that has been, at various points, a gas station, bait shop, tavern, malt shop, and dangerous biker bar before becoming known for its steaks. Kickapoo Creekside in Readstown began as a chicken coop. Toby’s in Madison was opened by a World War I flying ace. The Relish in Germantown occupies a building dating to 1836.

For anyone drawn to regional American traditions, and to the colorful histories that make them worth preserving, this is a journey through Wisconsin one supper club, and one old-fashioned, at a time.

Hardcover. Color photographs throughout.