Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club

 By J. Ryan Stradal

Viking     2023

335 pages     Literary

Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club is the third J. Ryan Stradal novel that I have read, and I have loved all three. Is it because they are all based in Minnesota, my home state? Is it because some of the topics are about food? Is it because many of the protagonists are women? All of the above!

Stradal’s third novel is about a supper club and the family members who have owned it over three generations. Natalie Rinn wrote a terrific article about supper clubs on the Taste website. What I did not know is that supper clubs are an Upper Midwest phenomenon. It almost feels like Stradal read this article before he began writing his book, because there are several similarities. (I do have to insert that Matt Rodbard who runs the Taste website is the son of my dear friend Cheryl, and knows Stradal. Just had to put in that connection.)

The plot involves four generations of Minnesota women, Betty, Florence, Mariel, and Julia, one restaurant called The Lakeside Supper Club, one Big Boy-style diner chain called Jorby’s, food and drink, and love, loss, grief, and persistence. The book is epic in nature spanning about 85 years, from the early 1930s to the present. During that time frame, the one consistent element is the restaurant, who runs it, who works there, and who is going to inherit it.

Stradal is a genius at getting into the heads of women protagonists. They are identifiable, loveable, annoying, and totally spot-on. One of my favorite sub-plots concerns Florence, who is not interested in the restaurant and becomes estranged from her daughter Mariel, who with her husband Ned, is running  the restaurant. Florence wants to reconnect with Mariel following a major tragedy, but Mariel is not ready for that. So, Florence begins a sit-down strike at the local church when Mariel doesn’t come to pick her up after Sunday church.  The community members rise to the occasion and help Florence survive three months of waiting. It becomes the “unofficial, unverified record for public passive-aggressive waiting.”  

All the book’s characters are memorable. The only difficulty I experienced was remembering which generation I was in. However, I discovered that when I read the chapter headings, Stradal has identified which generation we are talking about during which years. Once I figured that out, the pages flew by. I recently read an article about how Stradal writes to please his long-deceased mother. By doing that, Stradal enters the minds of the women he celebrates.

I also liked how Stradal celebrates the people who work at restaurants, the cooks, the servers, and the other staff. I think they tend to be ignored. Additionally, I appreciated the opportunities that restaurants offer to people. Betty, Florence, and Mariel all took their turns serving customers at the Lakeside Supper Club. All learned how to be gracious hosts to locals, tourists, and the cottage residents. (Only in Minnesota, cottages are called “cabins”.)

My first thought when I began the book was about a supper club that we drive by in Northern Wisconsin on our many, many trips to Duluth. When I looked it up, I remembered that it is Kincaid’s Country Inn—Prime Rib and Steak in Rice Lake. The website says that it is “an iconic restaurant, built on a historic location that hungry customers in the Midwestern Northwoods have been visiting for generations.” This could definitely be the Lakeside Supper Club, just in a different location.

Here are my reviews of Stradal’s two other books: Kitchens of the Great Midwest, which is about a famous Minnesota chef, and The Lager Queen of Minnesota, about women developing a brewery. The Minneapolis Star Tribune review says that Stradal “is a genius at world-building.” I would definitely agree. Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club is a world all its own. Come and have some steak or prime rib.