A veteran travel writer has made the trip to Green Lake, Wisconsin every year for 15 years running. This autumn, for the first time, he brought his kids along — and the resulting trip report is a tidy snapshot of what small-town Wisconsin does best.
The logistics are simple: a three-hour drive north from Chicago O'Hare, with a mandatory Portillo's hot dog stop en route (one kid converted, one unconvinced). The destination is a small lake town that most travellers whiz past on the way somewhere else — which is exactly its appeal.
The trip's anchor is a proper Wisconsin supper club dinner. For the uninitiated, these are rural institutions that blend a nice restaurant with a social club: prime rib, fish fries, steaks, the obligatory relish tray and a well-made Old Fashioned, all at prices big-city diners would envy. The family hit the Schaumburg Supper Club at 5pm sharp — arrive at 6:30 and the prime rib is already gone, a lesson learned the hard way on a previous visit. Kids had shrimp and spare ribs; the adults did not share.
Monday morning delivered a familiar small-town reality check: Wisco Coffee in Ripon was closed, as was Tabbert's, the recommended French toast spot. The fallback, Village Grounds in nearby Rosendale, turned out to be the find of the trip — a cortado good enough to prompt buying a bag of beans from local roaster Anodyne. Breakfast and a few rounds of Uno followed.
Then came the lake itself. Borrowing a Sea-Doo, the family spent the afternoon on the water — 10-year-old Augustine hitting 65mph while six-year-old Claire Marie preferred a gentle 10mph on choppy autumn water. That's the Green Lake formula in miniature: hearty food, warm hospitality and easy access to the water, all within a road-trip radius of Chicago.
Worth flagging for anyone driving Highway 23: Rosendale is reportedly a speed trap, with the limit dropping sharply at the town limits — though the author has never actually spotted a police car there. Also notable: fuel was running about $2 a gallon more than the same time last year, and Monday closures are real in these towns, so plan café and restaurant visits for later in the week.
Who is this for? Anyone plotting a Midwest getaway that skips the obvious spots — families visiting Chicago who want a day or two of lake life, or travellers chasing the supper club tradition at the source. Green Lake won't show up on most itineraries, and after 15 consecutive years of visits, its loyal fan argues that's part of the charm.
