It’s enjoying a home-cooked ribeye steak with roasted potatoes on a pristine, white tablecloth-lined table. It’s the monthly family get together on fish fry Friday. It’s as simple as sipping an old fashioned while making conversation with the bartender.

This is the essence of a Wisconsin supper club.

A supper club is the place that cures boredom. A four-course meal, salad bar, infinite cocktail options and sometimes even live music foster a welcoming, lively atmosphere. For the masses, supper clubs have always been considered the ultimate destination spot — a place to spend the entire night.

For generations of Wisconsinites, spending time at supper club is like being at home, and they grew to appreciate the tradition. But due to developing culinary trends — first fast food, then COVID-19 — supper club dining had dwindled as decades passed.

Coming out of the isolated and socially devastating pandemic climate, Wisconities quickly recognized the importance of unity. Returning to the local supper club became part of the routine again. Now, these clubs are pulling in the next generation by connecting timeless traditions with a fresh perspective, redefining how their culture is experienced.

“It really is a Wisconsin thing,” says Missy Hagel, a middle-school teacher who has worked at Hotel Seymour as a bartender for almost three years. “You go to Illinois, you go to Minnesota, and they don’t know what a supper club is.”

The first-ever supper club was established in Beverly Hills, California, by Wisconsin native Lawrence Frank. They are historically known by various nicknames — underground restaurants and guerrilla diners, to name a few.

More than 250 supper clubs flourish across Wisconsin, and the Hotel Seymour Supperclub, located in Seymour, in between Green Bay and Appleton, exemplifies these deeply-rooted values.

Situated on the corner of Seymour’s South Main Street and East Wisconsin Street in the northeastern part of the state sits a castle-like, two-story brick building: Hotel Seymour Supperclub.

Since opening its doors in 2004, Hotel Seymour works to maintain its authenticity as a Wisconsin supper club. It was built in 1898 as a hotel, offering 28 rooms, a barbershop in the basement and horses for guest transportation. In 1951, it changed its name to “Hotel Seymour Supper Club” and currently runs as a true supper club.

You walk into Hotel Seymour and are hit with instant shock: Am I in a museum or someone’s living room?

The horseshoe-shaped bar and array of mouth-watering food platters at their buffet alone make it a unique place. A mural painted in 1966 by Ole Olson looks over the barroom, displaying the supper club’s long history of socialization and celebration of life. Relics of the past and present surround the entire dining room and bar area.

Brady Jackson, the head manager, has known Hotel Seymour since childhood. After his family decided to buy the hotel property and open the establishment, Jackson grew to love the supper club environment.

His father, Tom Jackson, is the current owner of the supper club.

“It’s more of a social setting, which separates that from a lot of restaurants. A lot of places, you just go eat your food and you want to leave,” Brady Jackson says.

According to Jackson, social media has been a game changer for Hotel Seymour. It has attracted the attention of many tourism and travel-based media organizations like America’s Best Restaurants. As a result, the supper club has seen increasing numbers of new patrons who have traveled from various parts of Wisconsin — something that would have been unforeseen a decade ago.

“It’s been 20 years of having amazing food, and we’re finally getting recognition for it,” Jackson says. “It’s just awesome.”

The multigenerational crowd returns to the supper club knowing what they are going to get, but enjoys the experience every single time. Jackson sees the same families come to the supper club for dinner — a tradition that he and his family intend to keep at Hotel Seymour.

“People are not willing to let that tradition die out,” Jackson says.

The experience at Hotel Seymour is more than just food on a plate.

Hagel makes a 20-minute commute to Seymour every week and enjoys every moment she spends at the supper club.

As a bartender, Hagel sees everyone and everything. In the past, it was the type of place where you would see your banker, hairdresser or grocer, Hagel says. Patrons regularly socialize at the bar for hours leading into dinnertime, which typically lasts until the late hours of the evening.

Eating at Hotel Seymour isn’t “just a dinner situation,” Hagel says.

Hotel Seymour ensures its menu is home-cooked. It offers comforting weekly specials — weekday sandwiches, Saturday surf and turf and Sunday slow-roasted prime rib — and they rely on authentic family recipes to satisfy stomachs.

“It’s not coming from a can, it’s not coming from a box,” Hagel says. “It’s coming from these recipes that have been tried and true for years and years.”

What makes Hotel Seymour unique is the community’s regulars.

“You just know that they’re gonna have a whiskey old fashioned sour with cherries and an extra orange, because that’s what they like,” Hagel says.

Wisconsin natives attend their restaurant not only for convenience but as tradition. Each supper club is bound to have its regular patrons, newcomers or adults who have eaten at the same place since they were children.

The hope now is that younger diners implement supper club dining in their daily lives. Local organizations in the state have only started to sustain this story of what it means to go to a supper club.

“Nostalgia really is part of the reason why I think that we’ve seen a resurgence in popularity,” says Kristine Hillmer, president and CEO of the Wisconsin Restaurant Association, which represents local Wisconsin restaurants.

Hillmer knows a lot about supper clubs as an avid diner. She tracks the fluctuations in the restaurant industry as local businesses attempt to keep up with an ever-changing economy. Supper clubs that remain successful find ways to adapt in all situations.

“The prices at supper clubs have gone up significantly because of the prices of the commodities to make the dishes have gone up dramatically,” Hillmer says.

Through its constant efforts to enhance Wisconsin’s food service industry, the association also understands the relevance of supper club culture.

“Supper clubs are always welcoming. They’re always warm. They always want you to have a great experience,” Hillmer says. “They’re bending over backwards to make sure that things are OK, and that’s what our industry does each and every day.”

In Wisconsin, going to a supper club means more than eating a hearty meal with loved ones. It’s about making meaningful dinner conversations with friends and family and sharing life’s best moments. It brings our shared values — community, love and celebration — and infuses them into a single restaurant.

Local businesses have found social media to be a haven for sharing their visions. Supper clubs like Hotel Seymour have used social media platforms to spread the word about their uniqueness, reaching audiences that surpass state borders.

There is even a Facebook group — Wisconsin Supper Club Enthusiasts — dedicated to the art of eating at a supper club.

“The camaraderie and the noises you hear at a supper club is what I think of when I think of Wisconsin culture. It’s the rumbles and the belly laughs and the energy of people just excited to see each other. “

Evan Freimuth has contributed to supper club sustainability since he founded Venture Wisconsin, a company that provides things to do for Wisconsin residents and visitors. Freimuth wanted to find solutions for discovering entertainment in the state.

“Venture Wisconsin became the answer to that question,” Freimuth says, describing where gradual brainstorming and conversations with mentors led him. “The goal is to get people out.”

To Freimuth, dining at supper clubs is vital for the state. He believes there is a clear future for innovations in the supper club dining industry, particularly in partnering with other Wisconsin hotspots: distilleries.

Freimuth ate at Hotel Seymour himself, describing the experience as warm, memorable and intimate.

“The camaraderie and the noises you hear at a supper club is what I think of when I think of Wisconsin culture,” Freimuth says. “It’s the rumbles and the belly laughs and the energy of people just excited to see each other.”

Cover Photo: Hotel Seymour Supperclub sits on the corner of South Main Street and East Wisconsin Street in Seymour, Wisconsin. Photo by Lauren Aguila.