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The New River Inn & The VUE, Waterfront Dining & Bar
What’s old is new again for a long-time Wisconsin Dells hotel property and its owners, and all indications are the hotel’s new concept at a historic location is tailor-made for the city and its downtown, river-themed revitalization effort. The River Inn is a newly renovated, re-branded 73-room property located on the Wisconsin River in Downtown Wisconsin Dells at 1015 River Road. This Boutique Hotel is the perfect addition and fits right in with the city’s plans for a revitalized downtown area. Adam, David and Rich Makowski — whose family has owned and operated hotels, restaurants and a gas station in the Dells since 1973 — have been working since January 1, 2017 to remodel the property’s interior, exterior and restaurant and bar (The VUE). They will soon unveil plans for an one of a kind Riverfront Plaza that will tie into the nearby Riverwalk and emphasize the historical significance of the Wisconsin Dells area. The River Inn’s main hotel building occupies the site of Drinker’s Landing, where the first boat tours of the Upper Dells began — by steamboat — in 1873, and where a hotel has occupied the site since 1924, according to the Dells historical society. Also, the once local’s favorite place to dine is now OPEN. Renamed “The VUE”, it lives up to it’s name as “The Best View in the State of the Wisconsin River!”
That storied history plus the riverside area’s scenic beauty and the newly expanded Riverwalk has been incorporated into the hotel’s intimate setting, according to River Inn Co-owner and General Manager Adam Makowski. The hotel will feature on its interior walls the work of Dells-area nature photographer Joseph Leute and H.H. Bennett, Makowski said, and its intimate size and an on-site ownership committed to service also fit into the “boutique” hotel concept.
“The allure that Boutique hotels offer is their focus on their location in a community and then incorporating that into the design, theming and flare of the hotel” Makowski said. The hotel also features a host of other amenities, the Makowski brothers said, among them are riverside deck and boat dock not far from an indoor, full-service restaurant and bar as well as an indoor pool and hot tub overlooking the river. The hotel also features an outdoor pool at the hotel building across the street. The Makowski brothers’ hospitality management pedigree runs deep in Wisconsin Dells. Their parents, Grace and Richard Makowski, began managing their first hotel here in 1971 and from there expanded their holdings to include both of the aforementioned hotels, a restaurant and a gas station, all in the Dells. All three of the brothers have worked in the family’s business — which today also include Hot Rocks restaurant and the BP gas station across the street from the American Resort — since they were 10 years old, and they bring a combined 80 years of experience to their new ventures.
“The Makowski family has always been fully committed to the vitality of Wisconsin Dells both in tourism development and the quality of life for families who live here,” said Kelli Trumble, chairwoman of the Business Improvement District
Trumble also noted that, with the recently expanded Riverwalk just footsteps away, the River Inn “will have an amenity that no other hotel in the Dells area can claim.”
