• Home
  • News
    • Politics & Government
    • Business & Economy
    • Crime / Courts
    • Health / Medicine
  • Sports
    • High School Sports
    • Radio Iowa Poll
  • Affiliates
    • Affiliate Support Page
  • Contact Us
    • Reporters

Radio Iowa

Iowa's Radio News Network

You are here: Home / Human Interest / Disappearing Iowa “supper clubs” subject of tribute book

Disappearing Iowa “supper clubs” subject of tribute book

July 4, 2013 By Matt Kelley

Dave Hoekstra - Picture courtesy Chicago Sun-Times

Dave Hoekstra – Picture courtesy Chicago Sun-Times

The vanishing Midwestern tradition of supper clubs is the subject of a new book that features stories and photos of the remaining relics across the region.

Author Dave Hoekstra says supper clubs were much more than just restaurants. Giving a clear definition of one is a bit challenging, but he says it starts with a great view in a typically rural location.

“It would always have linen napkins, relish trays — that’s a good sign of a supper club, Friday night fish fry and prime rib on Saturdays,” Hoekstra says. “Clumsy furniture, like old orange naugahyde chairs and things like that.”

Hoekstra, who’s a writer for the Chicago Sun-Times, spent three summers visiting the aging establishments from Iowa to Ohio to create “The Supper Club Book.”

Some remaining supper clubs have been given new life with new owners, up-scale menus and more “farm to table-style” cooking, but most still have the look and feel of T-V’s “Mad Men,” somewhat lost in a by-gone decade.

The Supper Club Book“Back in the day, people would go to a supper club at suppertime, around 4 or 5 o’clock,” Hoekstra says.

“You’d have a couple of Old Fashioneds, a couple of drinks, sometimes there’d be live music, you’d go sit down have a nice, leisurely dinner, take their time, look out at that beautiful view, then come back and adjourn to the bar, have a couple more drinks and listen to the music. It would be a six- or seven-hour evening.”

Today’s fast-paced lifestyle helped to doom many of the region’s supper clubs, he says, as well as stricter laws about drinking and driving.

Some of the clubs have their roots in the 1930s and began as speak-easies and Prohibition-era roadhouses, complete with gambling. Hoekstra says many were, and still are, dimly lit.

“The dim lighting and just the escape, that you’re going somewhere different, exotic, you’re taking a little trip in a short while,” Hoekstra says. “The definition of a supper club, it just seems like you’re going out for this really enchanting evening and the dim light plays into that.”

The book contains more than a hundred pictures and inteviews with club owners and patrons. Hoekstra calls it a combination travel guide and social history.

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Filed Under: Human Interest, News

Featured Stories

Governor signs child care expansion into law

Iowa seniors have until July 1 to apply for new property tax break

Smoke from distant fires creates colorful sunrise in Iowa

DOT’s Motor Vehicle Enforcement Division to merge into State Patrol

Iowa’s governor approves liability limits for trucking industry

TwitterFacebook
Tweets by RadioIowa

Radio Iowa/Baseball Coaches Association High School Poll 6/5/23

Iowa eliminated at NCAA regional

Iowa names Beth Goetz interim AD

Cyclone Trio Invited to USA Basketball U19 Training Camp

Cameron Young to compete at the John Deere Classic

More Sports

Archives

Copyright © 2023 ยท Learfield News & Ag, LLC