Time travel

The dining room in this part of the supper club is
 called, of course,  the Tepee Room.

We visited the 1960s last night. I'm not sure just how long this supper club has existed in Land O' Lakes, Wisconsin, but it's been there for as long as I can remember, which is at least 25 years. Going by the politically incorrect Indian motif, I'm guessing it has to go back at least 40 years, maybe more, back to the days prior to the political battles over treaty rights in northern Wisconsin. Every time we drove by it on U.S. 45, we'd say the same thing: "One of these days, we should stop there for dinner." 

The timing was never quite right, though. The Red Man is a supper club, and we'd be driving by in the middle of the day. Or maybe the timing was okay but we'd already eaten dinner at the Older Daughter's house only an hour or two before. I suppose we could have just stopped for drinks simply to see the interior, but that's not really something a person wants to do when she's still got two hours of driving ahead of her. Besides, the only true test of a supper club is to eat the food it serves.

Yesterday, however, the timing was perfect. It was late enough in the day that the supper club was open but still early enough that the parking lot wasn't packed -- that meant we could probably get a table quickly. So we stopped.

It really was like stepping back several decades in time. The interior is classic northwoods rustic -- knotty pine paneling, a taxidermy display (a cluster of fish, probably bass), a soot-covered fireplace. Service was fast and friendly, the menu completely typical for a northern Wisconsin supper club: lots of red meat in various forms plus the classic broasted* chicken. The S.O. ordered ribs, I had the broasted chicken special and then indulged in a brandy Alexander. I have no clue why I felt the urge to order an ice cream drink -- maybe it was the retro ambiance that compelled me to call for the Wayback Machine and return to the days when bartenders had to cope with sloshed housewives ordering grasshoppers and pink squirrels. I should have taken a picture: it arrived looking like a parfait from Dairy Queen with the various layers of booze and ice cream swirled elegantly in the glass.

Would we eat there again? Yes. The food was good, prices were reasonable, service was fast and friendly, and the bartender obviously knows how to do more than just pour shots of Jagermeister.

[*Why is the process called Broasting when it's actually deep fat frying in a pressure cooker?]

Orphan sign

Along I-20/I-59 in Meridian, Missippi.  The only thing left of whatever used to be here is a section of brick wall.  No hint of what the business might have been or how long it's been gone -- I first noticed the sign back in 2007, and nothing's changed near it since then.

Things learned while traveling

Roadside architecture isn't dead.  The structure above is the Mellow Mushroom located at one of the Anniston, Alabama, exits on I-20.  It looks even more like a mushroom when viewed at a distance from the interstate instead up close in the parking lot. 

I don't know if Mellow Mushroom has any other buildings like this one; all the Mellow Mushrooms I've seen here in Atlanta are in repurposed space, not new construction.

It's not neon

But it's definitely way cool. Thanks to Dave at The Lake is the Boss for this great photo from Grand Marais, Minnesota.

Big Chicken gets a make-over

The AJC has some nifty photos of a well-known local landmark, the Big Chicken, getting spruced up. I'm a little skeptical as to how handy it is as a reference point for giving directions because every time I've been past it we were already committed to either going straight or turning long before the bird became visible, but then I'm skeptical about almost everything.