Food/Dining : Sturgeon Bay

Mill Supper Club
4128 Hwys 42 & 57
N. Sturgeon Bay
920-743-5044

Built in 1930 by Minor and Louise Dagneau, the Mill Supper Club has been a local tradition for family dining. This is a real family place, where locals gather to eat, say hello to one another and enjoy their time together. This is the only restaurant in Door County that we have reviewed where the place is packed with locals, and with local families. It was a genuine treat to see this camaraderie, friendship and tradition in action!

You walk into a very unassuming little room, with the bar to the room on the right, and a small dining room area past the bar. You think, wow — small place, nothing fancy here. The main dining room is actually hidden away behind the bar, so walk around to the left when you come in to reach the large, non-smoking dining room, with a huge peaked ceiling, pine wood beams, floral stenciled borders along the walls above the oak wainscoting and paint, and what look to be the white maple floors. Grapevines, entwined around the perimeter of the walls and wrapped with white lights, add a nice touch.

Very friendly place, very local, very family, from infants on up. Here people know each other, take time to talk to each other as they walk from their table to their neighbors to say hi, and the wait staff knows pretty much who they are waiting on: "Did you have enough butter on your potatoes, George?" one asked. This is the charm of Mill Supper Club, as we watched a family of nine celebrate the seven-year-old’s birthday. It’s family, and the people working here love the place too — and they show it. Many have been here for years.

The specialty of the house is the family style chicken dinner. The menu also includes appetizers like breaded mushrooms, jalapeno poppers, mozzarella sticks, onion rings, cheese curds (it’s Wisconsin you know!), soups. Daily specials like stuffed shrimp, baked cod, BBQ ribs, tenderloin, deep-or-pan fried lobster or walleye or a seafood platter bring variety to the menu. The chicken dinner specials are on Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday.

Entrees on the fish and seafood side included twin lobster tails, perch, walleye, scallops, Lake Michigan whitefish and more. On the light fare, an 8 oz. ribeye, open faced tenderloin, or deep-fried chicken are offered. Dinner steaks in lots of cuts are available: prime rib, porterhouse, NY strop, ribeye, tenderloin. A combo platter of an 8 oz. tenderloin or ribeye, plus a lobster tail was ready for feasting too.

Mill Supper Club also had a kids menu of grilled cheese, chicken strips and a small version of shrimp. Lots of fried stuff on the menu, but the place uses s low saturated fat, no cholesterol oil according to their menu.

Our Food/Service

We had a baked cod dinner, and then twin lobster tails. The cod was a nice portion, good flavor (considering cod is not very flavorful), and nicely prepared. Accompanying cole slaw and dinner salad were good too. The lobster tails, a pricey item on the menu at about $38 for the twins, were good. Now, in Lake Michigan, we don’t have any fishermen out there hauling in lobster traps, so the tails had to take a long journey to get here. So don’t expect east coast lobster. Nonetheless, it was flavorful and enjoyable for the price, and really, this is not one of the main dishes here . The homemade (by Shelly), cherry cheese tort was fresh and creamy and obviously homemade — our reviewer said he’d come back just for the cherry cheese tort it was so good!

Meals on average run between $8 and $13, with some items more expensive (like the twin lobster tails). Our service was excellent, some of the best service we have had in Door County — and this we think is because this is basically a permanent, year-round staff (not seasonal). These folks love working here, and raved about how nice the people who owned the place were and what a great place it was to work. That was refreshing — you really don’t always see that (it’s actually rare). Our waitress, Sayard, was wonderful. We never waited for anything — she was always right there. Never heard that name before? Neither did we so we asked. Her mother saw a movie, "Awakening Land," a pioneer movie, and there was an actress in it whose name was Sayard — her mom liked it, and well, now she’s a terrific person and super waitress!

The bar area is all original knotty pine, has a couple of tables, and has magnificent hand-carved wooden ships on display behind the bar. We met the owners, Don and Shelly, and spoke with them at length after our dinner — they were a delight to talk with, and have a ton of interesting stories about the place and the business. We can see why the staff likes them so much!

This is a very nice place, especially if you are traveling with kids, because they are truly welcomed here. The staff is wonderful, the local people and regulars a delight, and the food was enjoyable as well. But the atmosphere here is the best, and the building is full of history.

Stop in Mill Supper Club, right where Hwys 57 and 42 split at Sturgeon Bay. It’s worth the experience!

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