10/30/2026
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The Red Circle Inn is the Wisconsin restaurant that was serving dinner before Wisconsin was a state. It sits in Nashotah, in Waukesha County's Lake Country, on the old Watertown Plank Road. The year on its history is 1848, the same year Wisconsin joined the Union. Most buildings in the state cannot say that, and most restaurants cannot say they have survived this long.
The story begins with Bavarian immigrants. Francis and Anna Magdalena Schraudenbach, who had received an 80 acre land grant in Waukesha County in 1844, are said to have opened the Nashotah Inn in 1848. It stood at a busy crossroads, catching travelers between Milwaukee and Watertown. The plank road was completed in 1853, and the inn became a favorite stagecoach stop, a place where tired passengers could eat a hot meal, stable the horses, and sleep under a roof.
The railroad changed everything. In 1854, a line was built through Nashotah, just feet from the front door, and the inn became a gateway for travelers heading to the lakes. Visitors from Milwaukee and Chicago arrived by train, stepped off the platform, and walked straight into the dining room. The inn changed hands in 1867, when Isaac Smith took over, and it continued serving traders, settlers, and summer vacationers for decades.
The Pabst family left the most famous mark. In 1889, Captain Frederick Pabst bought the property and renamed it the Red Circle Inn, after the red circle logo of his brewery. The name stuck, and so did the glamour. Under the Pabst influence, the inn became a destination for the Milwaukee elite. A fire in 1917 burned the upper two stories, but the rumor is that firefighters saved the original Pabst bar, and it still stands today.
The twentieth century kept the doors open. In 1950, the national food writer Duncan Hines named the Red Circle Inn among the top roadhouses of the decade. In 1976, a new owner, Aat Groenevelt, brought a veal focused menu and turned it into a see and be seen restaurant. In 1996, partners Norm Eckstaedt and Nico Derni took over and kept the traditions going for years. In 2022, Geronimo Hospitality Group bought the inn, freshened the rooms, and even reopened an old fireplace that had been hidden behind a false wall.
That is why the Red Circle Inn belongs in the story of Wisconsin. It is believed to be the oldest restaurant in the state and one of its oldest supper clubs. Today, guests order prime rib, steaks, and a Wisconsin old fashioned, and sit in a dining room that has hosted travelers for more than 175 years. A fireplace glows, a glass clinks at the old Pabst bar, and the plank road hums outside. The stagecoach is long gone, but the dinner bell still rings.
