The Gobbler Gonna Go?

If you’ve traveled the interstate to Milwaukee, you’ve probably seen The Gobbler.  It’s just south of I-94 in Johnson Creek.. opposite the Outlet Mall.  It’s up for auction and there is a good chance that the new owner will tear it down.  (Kind of like the Gobbler Motel)

It would be sad to see it go, but it’s even sadder to see it just sitting there the way it is now.

The Gobbler Supper Club, an icon of Wisconsin kitschiness, heads for the auction block

The eccentricities of a Jefferson County turkey farmer were not limited to a rotating bar, pink and purple shag-carpeted walls and an elevated dance floor dubbed “The Roost.”

So when Clarence Hartwig added on to the bird-shaped Gobbler Supper Club he opened in 1969, field stone just wouldn’t do.

Since the early 1970s, the walls of the restaurant’s entry way and lobby have been covered in chunks of petrified wood, some pieces weighing more than 200 pounds but most pieces weighing less than 50 pounds.

Much of it is now on pallets after workers this week used hammer drills to remove and prepare it for Saturday. That’s when the ancient pieces of tree will be put up for auction along with the building, its contents and nine acres of land.