The Gobbler Reborn: the New Gobbler Theater

Sometimes miracles do happen: the revamped and re-imagined Gobbler Theater in Johnson Creek, WI is now a popular new venue specializing in "intimate" concerts - the building's unusual circular layout must make for a one-of-a-kind entertainment experience we'd love to see firsthand. Piet Levy of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has put together a beautiful photoessay on the Gobbler, with some rare views of its past and present incarnations. Levy describes how the owners deftly "tuned" the Gobbler Theater's bookings for maximum local fan appeal:

Following a soft opening with a local school choir in December 2015, the Gobbler Theater had its first name band last April in Starship—the rock group behind the infamous, oft-maligned "We Built This City." But the venue between Milwaukee and Madison quickly and wisely switched gears to focus on country, the dominant genre in the market. Noted g[u]e[s]ts so far include Maddie & Tae, Jana Kramer and Confederate Railroad, with Lorrie Morgan, Easton Corbin and Little Texas coming up through July.

We Fans of the Gobbler certainly wish Theater owner Dan Manesis much success with his "labor of love." You can check out upcoming shows - including country stars Lorrie Morgan on April 29, and Aaron Tippin on October 13 - and purchase tickets at the official Gobbler Theater website. (Photo by Dan Zaitz for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

Belated RIP: Gobbler Architect Helmut Ajango

The saying goes, one should never wait too long to contact (or re-contact) long-lost friends or relatives; the same could be said of long-admired artists, like Helmut Ajango, architect of the Gobbler Restaurant and Motel, who passed away November 2013. You never know when you'll lose your only chance. I'd mused on the idea of sending Mr. Ajango a postcard or letter telling him how much I admired the Gobbler's design and how much interest the building continued to inspire decades on. I'm sure he already knew, judging from the number of Web references to his designs steadily amassing over the past decade or so. Of course, the Gobbler was only one of many dozens of striking buildings, homes, banks, and churches he dreamed up on his drafting table that still bring a touch of bygone-era beauty to towns and cities across the Midwest. I never sent that card, but wish I had. RIP, Mr. Ajango.

• Madison.com obituary dated November 16, 2013
• Creative mind behind Fireside, Gobbler: Fort architect Ajango dead
• Dunlap Memorial Home obituary for Ajango, and for his wife Martha, who passed away less than six months later. Sadly, their son Bradley Kent Ajango also died in 2013, one month before his father Helmut.
• A GazetteXtra piece on the Fireside Dinner Theater, another Ajango creation, and the proposed Starlight Restaurant, planned in 1969 as "Janesville's restaurant in the sky," inspired by Seattle's then-new Space Needle.

Image courtesy Madison.com.

What's the Status of the New "Gobbler Theater"?

UPDATE, 6/12/15 4:25PM: Check out the Gobbler Supper Club & Motel Facebook page for photos of the ongoing restoration; looks like a lot has been changing beneath the famous dome!

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It's been a little over one year since the Midwestern press announced Wisconsin entrepreneur (and fellow Retrologist) Dan Manesis' plans to resurrect The Gobbler Restaurant as a 400-500 seat entertainment venue.

• Former Gobbler restaurant being converted to live music venue
• On Wisconsin: Meet the man with optimism and financial wherewithal to revive the Gobbler
• Resurrecting “The Gobbler:” What is in this icon’s future?
• The Gobbler is coming back!
• Historic Johnson Creek restaurant to be reborn as small theater
• Gobbler to become entertainment venue
• Village of Johnson Creek Meeting Minutes from April 17, 2014, Announcing Manesis' Proposal for 'Gobbler Theater' [PDF]
• YouTube video from 2011 showing the (then) condition of the Gobbler's interior.

Has anyone heard "through the grapevine" if there's been any progress on the project? [Fantastic image of discarded Gobbler chairs courtesy of the Mid-Century Modern Freak blog. I'm unsure of the photographer (I will gladly credit) or the date, but about 10 years ago we found one discarded purple chair in the Gobbler dumpster that's a proud conversation piece.]

Gobbler Links: Updated!

"My mom and my dad just both liked the color pink. Some people like green, some like blue, they liked pink."

-- Clarence Hartwig, Jr., quoted in Linda Godfrey's "The Gobbler Lives"

Many of the websites that were featured on the original post are now defunct, but archived links have been provided where available courtesy of the wonderful Wayback Machine.

You can obtain information on the current status of the property by contacting the real estate agency representing the current owners. More information is available at www.buythegobbler.com. (Please note, I am not connected with the property owners or the real estate agency in any way, and I can not answer any inquiries about the property.)

The Gobbler Motel and Restaurant now has its own Facebook page. (Please note that while this page lists this blog's link in the "About" section, I am not connected with the page, or its authors/owners.)

• Wisconsin State Journal: "Gobbler Supper Club, icon of Wisconsin kitschiness, heads for auction block"
• MissionCreep: The Gobbler Supper Club and Motel: "Romance Meets Turkey Filling in the Midwest," by Kitty Kocol and Lois Mathison
• The Sighs and Whispers blog featured a colorful post on the Gobbler.
• HotelChatter.com mentioned Requiem for the Gobbler Motel in their March 2005 story, "The Mystery of the Gobbler Motel," and a follow-up, "The Gobbler's Last Supper," dated February 17, 2006.
• On March 12, 2005, the Madison, WI Capital Times featured an article by columnist Doug Moe, "The Gobbler was one of a kind."
• James Lileks' "Grooviest Motel In Wisconsin" - One of the definitive Gobbler resources. This extensive site features a selection of images from the motel and restaurant's promotional brochure, accompanied by Lileks' deliciously twisted commentary.
• Via Archive.org: Linda Godfrey has a newly-renovated page on www.cnb-scene.com devoted to the Gobbler, Remembering The Gobbler Supper Club: A Turkey of A Restaurant, where you'll find some very nice photos of the restaurant interior (and that four-sectioned sofa that I didn't have the presence of mind to shoot when I had the chance!).
• Via Archive.org: 30-second TV ad for the Gobbler Restaurant (from 1980) in Windows Media Player (.wmv) format! Listen/watch at your own risk - just try prying that insanely catchy jingle out of your brain. It's a kaleidoscopic blend of classic Americana, with sections devoted to CB and amateur radio, transportation, old advertisements and more.
• Architect Helmut Ajango's Gobbler page - Links directly to his 'Gobbler' page, but you can navigate the entire site from this location and view images of his varied creations through the years - including over one hundred churches, and a memorial in Ajango's native Estonia. Come to think of it, the Gobbler restaurant would make a dandy church; Protestant, of course.
• Via Archive.org: chez smartygirl: live - Another fun personal account of a Midwest Gobbler pilgrimage (with photos) taken prior to the motel's demolition, during the "John-John's Rib House" (pre-2001) era.
• Via Archive.org: The Gobbler Lives: the great icon of 70's kitsch returns to Johnson Creek by Tenaya Darlington - Tenaya writing for the online Isthmus Daily Page (Madison, WI); here she provides an aesthetic and gastronomical critique of the 2002 'Round Stone Restaurant' incarnation of the Gobbler Restaurant.

Gobbler Gala Set for June 6th, in Johnson Creek WI!

Gobbler Motel and Restaurant Fans have an exciting date to mark on the calendar - the Gobbler Gala is coming to the one-of-a-kind former restaurant on June 6th! Wisconsin State Journal's Doug Moe give us the details:

...On June 6, The Frank Lloyd Wright Wisconsin Tourism Program will host "The Gobbler Gala," a dinner and discussion at the building in Johnson Creek, just off Interstate 94, that was once the Gobbler Supper Club.

There will be a catered gourmet turkey dinner and speakers will include Jefferson architect Helmut Ajango, who designed the Gobbler, and Wright historian Sidney Robinson, formerly of the University of Illinois-Chicago, now with the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture. As one who rarely missed an opportunity during a Madison-to-Milwaukee run to duck off the highway and seek refreshment at the Gobbler, I am both amused and pleased by this development.

The idea came from Jack Holzhueter, retired after many years with the Wisconsin Historical Society, and a Wright Tourism board member. He enlisted another board member, Margo Melli, a Madison attorney and law professor, and together they persuaded the current owner of the Gobbler property, Jefferson attorney Raymond Krek, to go along. Though the restaurant has been closed for several years, much of the interior is still in place and Holzhueter said there's even a chance they'll get the revolving bar operating.

The only real problem is explaining the uniqueness of the Gobbler, which for most of its years had a motel adjacent to the restaurant, to those who never experienced it... [read the full article at the Wisconsin State Journal]

You can read more about the Gobbler's Motel's history and 2001 demise at our sister site, farkleberries.

The Gobbler Motel and Restaurant: The Television Commercial

From what I've been able to determine, this catchy commercial aired in the Milwaukee/Madison area broadcast market in the early to mid 1980's. Look closely, and you can see the restaurant's padded vinyl seating, the rotating bar, even the dance loft rendered in loving hand-painted detail! There's even a brief glimpse of the motel entrance in a pan shot.

I don't know the exact airdates, or which creative/advertising agency put it together, but it's delightful.

[Kindly uploaded to YouTube by user "miaotong"]

Once Upon A Time, in Wisconsin...

There was a place called The Gobbler.

The motel's design was a unique spoked "Prairie" style semicircle; luxurious purple, red, blue and pink shag carpeting graced many of the Gobbler's surfaces in its early-1970's heyday, a period when grooviness meant a bedroom covered floor-to-ceiling in the stuff.

Every detail - from lavender vinyl dining room upholstery to built-in 8-track stereos [in the "business suites" - as if we couldn't guess what sort of "business" was conducted in a motel room with a red shag-covered heart-shaped bed] exemplified over-the-top kitsch luxury.

Staying at the Gobbler, a traveler could enjoy hip sleepquarters, and then roll downhill for fine dining specializing in Meleagris gallopavo at the matching Gobbler restaurant. That would be - ahem - gobbler, because Clarence Hartwig Sr., the original owner of the complex, was a well-known Wisconsin turkey farmer.

Some people believe every object contains a bit of the energy of everyone that came in contact with it: considering its rich lore, that alone would have been enough reason to keep the Gobbler standing. Sure, we can't keep every old building - we'd be overrun with collapsing hulks in a few generations. Still, we can try to remember the interesting, the adventurous, and the unique. The Gobbler certainly was all of those.

Don't forget to stop by the recently-updated (April 2005) Gobbler Links section, with connections to fresh news stories on the Gobbler Motel and Restaurant!