Eddie’s Village Inn: “Where Good Friends and Great Food Meet”
By Rebecca G Carlson
Sun contributor
For almost 50 years, one of the few locations where patrons could visit a history museum of Suttons Bay was Eddie’s Village Inn restaurant. Owned and managed by two generations of the Rothgarber Family from 1956 until 2004, this beloved eatery served as the central hub for local news, gossip, family and friend gatherings, and tourists looking for a delicious, home-cooked meal while enjoying Suttons Bay history laid out on the walls throughout the restaurant and behind the bar.
Walking in the door of the Rothgarber home, Mary Lou was pulling out vintage, black and white photographs of all sizes from her treasure trove collection of historical prints. After getting comfortable and settling in with Mary Lou and her husband of 66 years, Eddie, Jr., I needed to buckle up for an interesting couple of hours. As teasers to the interview topic of Eddie’s Village Inn, Mary Lou and Eddie hinted at Prohibition Era topics such as the mafia, illegal sales of alcohol, cops looking the other way, The Purple Gang, and disappearing into the wilds of up north to live quietly. I am already an enthusiastic captive audience.
The Rothgarber Family connection to the bar and restaurant business began during the early years of Prohibition, with Joseph Rothgarber, Eddie, Jr.’s grandfather, arriving to the United States at Ellis Island from the Austro-Hungarian region. After a brief stop in Cleveland to visit family, Joseph landed in Detroit and settled with his family establishing several bars and a cafe. Joseph’s first entrée into bar owning was by opening “The Blind Pig” in downtown Detroit in a basement-type location according to grandson Eddie Rothgarber, Jr. The bar operated during the nine years of Prohibition from 1921–1930, when selling and drinking liquor was illegal.
Joseph’s illegal liquor arrived from Canada, usually by a water route across the Detroit River. The group that managed the selling and distribution of this illegal product was known as The Purple Gang. “The Purple Gang was Detroit’s most notorious organized crime gang in the 1920s and 1930s …made up of immigrants from Detroit’s lower east side” (detroithistorical.org). Alcohol and drug smuggling using the Canadian border aided this group’s criminal work. Chicago mobster Al Capone “use[d] the Purple Gang to supply Old Log Cabin whiskey rather than battle them for Detroit territory” (detroithistorical.org).
As Joseph’s bar was located near a Purple Gang controlled neighborhood, it was not difficult to make connections with people who could supply the illegal liquor to The Blind Pig. According to Eddie, Jr., “the cops looked the other way” or “were paid to look the other way.”
When Prohibition ended, Joseph opened a new restaurant and bar legally: The Heidelberg Café. This establishment was run successfully by Joseph and son, Eddie, Sr., until the 1950s after Joseph passed away. For a time, Eddie, Sr. worked in the beer distributing business in Detroit alongside mentor and friend Stan Fischer. Not long after The Rothgarber Family moved up to the Suttons Bay area in the mid-1950s, Stan Fischer and his family purchased “The Happy Hour” at Gills Pier, renaming it “Fischer’s Happy Hour Tavern.”
Edward (Ed) Rothgarber, Sr. and his wife Dorothy decided they wanted to move their family, with two young sons, out of East Pointe Detroit in the mid-1950s and head north. Ed was looking to move to a rural area, wanting to fish and stop spending so much time on the road as a beer distributor which could be a dangerous occupation during the 1940s and 1950s in mafia and union-controlled Detroit. According to Mary Lou, she estimated the drive from Detroit to Suttons Bay in the 1950s would have been about a “six-and-a-half hour trip,” going through several rounds of tires. Traveling interstate Michigan meant “so many hours and so many tires,” in the words of an older acquaintance of Mary Lou and Eddie.
After contacting a statewide realtor, Ed and Dorothy contracted to purchase a bar in Suttons Bay, Harry’s Sportsmen Bar, owned and managed by Harry Czystowski. With Ed Rothgarber’s years of experience as a restaurant and bar manager for his father and a beer distributor, this segued nicely into the next chapter of life in buying a local business. Moving the family out of Detroit and to Suttons Bay, the Rothgarbers moved into the apartment above the bar for a few years. Harry’s Sportsmen Bar became Eddie’s Bar in 1956. As Eddie, Jr. emphasized, “It was a bar only. No food was served” in the early years. Eddie’s Bar did not begin serving food until the early 1960s when they offered pizza after Eddie, Jr. purchased a pizza oven for his dad’s expanding bar business.
In 1968, Eddie, Jr. and Mary Lou purchased Eddie’s Bar from his parents. From this period on, Eddie and Mary Lou worked hard to expand and grow the bar business, and they did so successfully. After purchasing the restaurant, Eddie expanded the pizza menu by adding burgers and sandwiches.
By 1974, Eddie and Mary Lou purchased the empty lot next to the bar to add on a dedicated restaurant and expand the footprint of business. Today, the foyer that contains the bathrooms with dining rooms off to one side with the huge fireplace are all part of that original addition. With a larger, built-in kitchen, the dining options expanded along with all-day dining from breakfast to dinner.
The name evolved from Eddie’s Bar to Eddie’s Village Inn as it became a full-service establishment. The new dining room offered breakfast and a daily full-service salad bar and lunch buffet. For dinner service, the 1970s ‘must-have’ menu items included pork chops, liver and onions (a popular item according to Mary Lou no matter how many faces I made), lobster tail, fillet of beef, lamb chops, veal parmesan, and prime rib (Eddie’s favorite). The bar served burgers, Reubens, pizza, steak sandwiches on rye toast, and more.
“Did we offer anything for vegetarians or others with special food diets?” asked Eddie. “Nope,” Patrons made their food choices from the menu offerings. A kid’s menu also did not exist in the 1970s. Mary Lou said that the kid’s menu came later in the 1990s. Friday fish night was popular with locals from the Leelanau peninsula with lake trout “supplied by a local gentleman who loved to fish,” whitefish, walleye, and perch. Both Eddie and Mary Lou raved about the three different chefs who worked with them over their 36 years of ownership: nephew George Caplinger (25 years), son Mike Rothgarber, and Juan Guillen who spiced up the menu by adding his personal recipes for Mexican food.
How did Eddie’s Village Inn become a Suttons Bay history venue? In 1974, while local architect Ken Krantz was designing the dining room and kitchen additions for Eddie and Mary Lou, he recommended adding historical photos throughout the bar and restaurant. From one simple suggestion by Mr. Krantz, customers benefited and enjoyed the walls laden with the black and white local history prints Mary Lou and Eddie curated over 36 years as owners and caretakers of Eddie’s Village Inn. In addition, they added the photographs came from various sources: the Bahles, the Belangers, family, and other locals. I feel fortunate that Mary Lou and Eddie shared with me the few remaining prints in their possession.
Celebrating 153 years in business, The Village Inn, located on St. Joseph’s Street in Suttons Bay, began as a local hotel. According to Leelanau Today, “F.J. Jellisch and his wife Maria Anna bought lots and built the Union Hotel on [the current] site. The business welcomed overnight guests with good food and drink.” While the bar and restaurant has changed hands over many years, it was the two-generation, continuous management of the Rothgarber Family who molded “The Oldest Tavern in Leelanau County, Where Good Friends and Great Food Meet” into the restaurant we all know and love.