Wisconsin Historical Society
It looks like someone might have cracked open a Guinness while preparing a “St. Patrick’s Day Dinner Menu” for the cafe that once existed in the basement of the state Capitol.
A photo provided by the Wisconsin Historical Society shows an extensive menu and a sketch of the building, viewed from the southwest. The menu is undated but the sketch confirms the meal was served in the current Capitol, says Michael Edmonds of the Wisconsin Historical Society.
W.C. Spahr is listed as the proprietor of the cafe; the meal cost $1 “per plate.” It was served after work hours, 5:30-7:30 p.m., which might explain the “Kilkenny shots.” There’s also Tipperary Salad, Molly McGuire’s Churned Cow, Muldoon’s Hoe Cake and Blarneystone Kisses.
According to Madison Food: A History of Capital Cuisine by Nichole Fromm and JonMichael Rasmus (American Palate, 2015), Elsa Kragh opened the Capitol Cafe in the basement of the state Capitol when lawmakers met for the first time in the new Capitol on Jan. 10, 1917. The authors write that Kragh recruited a chef from Chicago and “transformed the basement into her own establishment.”
For 12 years, they add, the cafe was a “hotspot,” becoming one of “Madison’s most notable restaurants.” Guests included Wisconsin actress Sophie Tucker and magician Harry Houdini. The Wisconsin Gazetteer from 1912 lists Mrs. W.C. Spahr (the name on the menu) as the proprietor of the State Capitol Cafe, so perhaps the cafe changed hands within five years or so of its founding. The restaurant closed in 1929, so the St. Paddy’s Day menu could likely date from the 1920s.
Fromm and Rasmus report that a vendor continued to sell snacks on the first floor of the Capitol until March 1938. The cafeteria reopened in the 1970s, run by blind business managers under a federal vocational program. It remained open until the turn of the century.
A nonprofit group started serving Sunday afternoon meals to homeless individuals in the basement of the Capitol starting in 2005; Savory Sundays ended with the 2011 Capitol protests but former president Tom Barry, who died of cancer in 2013, negotiated with Capitol officials to resume the service later that year. At the time, he told the Wisconsin State Journal: “It’s the right thing to do. This is the people’s house. I love this building.”
