Bavarian Inn Figure

Frankenmuth, Michigan | Photography by Buffet Authority

Frankenmuth has spent generations turning its Bavarian heritage into an entire streetscape, and few places embody that identity as completely as Bavarian Inn Restaurant. The building traces its history to the Union House Hotel, founded in 1888. The Zehnder family purchased the property in 1950, and by 1959 it had been transformed into the Bavarian Inn, part of a larger effort that helped shape Frankenmuth into the place now widely known as Michigan’s “Little Bavaria.”

The restaurant became especially associated with its family-style chicken dinners, but the experience has always extended well beyond the food. Bavarian architecture, themed dining rooms, carved wood, costumes, signs, figures and decades of accumulated decorative details make the restaurant feel less like a single dining room than a collection of small environments built up over time.

This seated figure, tucked beneath a sign pointing toward the Bavarian Dining Room, is one of those details that is easy to pass without much thought. Dressed in a Bavarian Inn Frankenmuth shirt layered over blue-and-white checks, an alpine-style green hat and even a Bell’s Oberon patch, he is part traditional Bavarian character and part distinctly Michigan restaurant oddity. There is nothing grand about the display, which is precisely what makes it memorable: one more eccentric little artifact contributing to the dense visual personality of a restaurant that has spent decades making its sense of place impossible to miss.

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