World Famous Frankenmuth

She sat back in her chair. “You’ve heard of Frankenmuth, right?”

“No ma’am.”

“It’s world famous!” she said enthusiastically, in a way that was meant to force a memory that she was confident was there. 

“Nope. I’m afraid not. What is it?”

“Oh my. It’s a town, designed after Bavaria, that has shopping and hotels. But it’s mostly

famous for the two fried chicken restaurants, Zehnder’s and the Bavarian Inn. I can’t believe

you’ve never heard of Frankenmuth.”

“Sounds neat.”

“Are you tired? If you’re not, I’m going to take you after dinner. You have to see it. They just built a new outdoor mall section and they have a laser light show once the sun goes down.” 

“Cool. Sounds fun.” I wasn’t really sure if it sounded cool, but Mrs. Reinbold was so into it, I figured that if it was half as cool as she thought it was, it’d be worth a story or two. 

On the drive, she gave quite the sales pitch, still flabbergasted that I’d never heard of it. Mr. and Mrs. Reinbold were children of German immigrants who had settled in this part of Michigan to be farmers. 

Frankenmuth, it turned out, was essentially their vacation destination, right down the road. A Bavarian-themed Disney that they could escape to while paying homage to their German roots. I asked about the fried chicken, because I’d never associated Germany with fried chicken, but she said she wasn’t sure. What she did know was that it was delicious, but they were the most expensive restaurants around, catering to tourists, so a trip to either place was reserved for special occasions. I’d come to realize that while I was being given the special treatment, my visit did not constitute a special occasion. We parked in a surface lot that was almost full. I still wasn’t convinced about the moniker of “World Famous,” but this was certainly more cars than I’d expected to see.

Walking out onto Main Street, I realized I’d been to Frankenmuth before. Not this Frankenmuth, but some other tourist trap town that picked a theme and everybody got on board and ran with. Williamsburg, VA. Gatlinburg, TN. Deadwood, SD. There are a ton and, essentially, they’re all the same. Despite that realization, they can still be a lot of fun, so I was looking forward to getting a tour from a local who’d been coming here her entire life. The tour started almost immediately, as we went into an ice cream shop that once inside looked like any other ice cream shop I’d ever been in. I like ice cream, so once inside I decided I’d get some. Right as I took a step toward the counter, she whispered, so as not to offend the owner, “Not from here. This place is too expensive. I used to work here.” 

Great! I thought. Insider info! I’m going to get my ice cream where the locals buy it! I was stoked. 

The tour continued as we’d duck into shops and restaurants, making our way toward the two famous fried chicken restaurants that were in the middle of town. Zehnder’s on one side of the street, the Bavarian Inn on the other. With each place we stopped, Mrs. Reinbold would lean over and give me a sentence or two about the time when she worked there. After this tidbit of her employment, we’d then almost immediately leave. No browsing. No buying. It didn’t take long for me to figure out the formula. I worked here. Here’s a fact about when I did work here. Exit the establishment. 

The only exception to this pattern was when the person working was about her age and a friend. Then there would be a quick introduction that felt like the establishment of an alibi for being a local, walking around with an outsider. No place was this more apparent than when we finally stepped through the threshold of Zehnder’s and weaved our way through the people standing around and into one of the main dining rooms. A very busy waitress walked by and Mrs. Reinbold called her name to get her attention. “This is Landall. He’s staying with us tonight and riding his bike across the U.S. He’d never heard of Frankenmuth so I’m showing him around. Can you believe it?” After a brief exchange of widened eyes, the waitress resumed her previous path. I thought we’d back out, but we went deeper and repeated that same exchange with a series of waitresses that were either friends or at the very least acquaintances of Mrs. Reinbold. The first couple were kind of awkward, but I realized I wasn’t actually expected to participate in this exchange, except to be there as physical proof of the story. 

We left Zehnder’s and I swear I saw Mrs. Reinbold breathe a little sigh of relief. I wasn’t sure what could’ve been so stressful about the whole thing. 

“What about that place?” I asked, pointing to the Bavarian Inn across the street. 

“Oh, it's exactly the same. But I didn’t work there,” she replied. 

I shrugged and we continued walking. 

We made our way up a hill and across a large creek to what she described as the newest part of town. When we arrived, I could see that they’d kept the Bavarian theme but essentially created an outdoor mall in a place that experienced some harsh winters. That struck me as an odd choice. Each of the buildings contained five or six first-floor retail shops, mostly consisting of more T-shirts or tchotchkes. I noticed that each building had what appeared to be a second floor with windows and planter boxes. 

“What’s up there? Apartments?” I asked, now impressed by the mixed-use development of the place. 

“Nothing. Those windows are fake,” she said. 

“It must be storage for the business then,” I assumed. 

“No. There’s nothing up there.” 

“Huh. Seems like a good space for some apartments.”

“Who would want to live above a store?” she wondered aloud.

Lots of people, I silently replied. 

“This is where the laser show takes place. I’ve wanted to see it, but we’ve never been over here at night. Do you want to see it?” she asked in that way that indicated a no would really break her heart. 

“Sure,” I said. But really, no, I didn’t want to see it. The sun wasn’t going to set until almost 10 p.m.  and I was barely going to be able to keep my eyes open. A laser show at a tourist-trap outdoor mall hardly seemed worth it, but here we were. “What should we do until then?” I asked, hoping the answer was going to be something about ice cream. 

“I want to show you the Bavarian Inn.” 

“The other chicken place?” I asked, pointing back down the hill. 

“Oh, no. The motel.” 

“Alright.” The novelty of this tour had worn off. I was ready for it to be over but I knew we still had over an hour to go. But at some point, there was going to be ice cream. I was trying to focus on the promise of ice cream. 

Approaching the Bavarian Inn, Mrs. Reinbold explained to me that what made it such a great hotel was that every room was labeled with both a number and a German last name. It was very common for German locals to book the hotel for wedding receptions and then spend their first night as a married couple in the room that shared their last name. It was now apparent to me that we were going to go stand outside of the door where she and Mr. Reinbold had consummated their marriage. We entered through the lobby but didn’t speak to the receptionist because either Mrs. Reinbold didn’t know him or hadn’t worked here. As we’d pass other rooms, she’d point out the name plates. 

“See, there’s the Muller room. I went to high school with a couple Mullers.” 

“Oh.”

“Wagner. Yep, know some of them.” 

“I see.” I was trying hard to seem genuinely interested but felt my ability start to wane as this exchange repeated itself with every room we passed. 

Then we got to the end of a hall and Mrs. Reinbold looked confused. “I could’ve sworn it was in this hall.” She put her hands on her hips and looked around trying to find where the Reinbold room was located. Without warning, she charged past me back down the hall, a lady on a mission, making no mention of any other last names. We were walking fast and I was making a real effort to keep up. I assumed she’d realized a wrong turn we’d taken and we were now on the right track, but soon after we were again at the end of another hall and the Reinbold room hadn’t been discovered. At this, she looked at me with eyes that were both confused and apologetic. “I swear it’s here.” She seemed concerned that I wouldn’t believe her. 

“Oh, I believe you. This place seems really confusing with all the hallways,” I replied to both comfort her, but also to indicate that I was really okay if we didn’t find the door. 

“It’s just that I haven’t been here since and that was twenty years ago, so…,” she continued on, convincing herself that it was okay to give up the hunt. 

“Maybe by the time we get back the laser show will be starting,” I said, trying to move us out of the hotel and toward the end of the tour of Frankenmuth. “And maybe there’s the ice cream place you alluded to earlier that we could stop in before the show?”

She looked at me blankly. “Ice cream?” she asked, confused.

“Oh, earlier at that ice cream shop you said it was too expensive and I shouldn’t buy it from there. I thought you were going to show me the cheaper place at some point.” 

“All the ice cream in Frankenmuth is expensive. You shouldn’t buy it here,” she said as a mom would say to her kids. 

“Oh. Okay.” Looks like I wasn’t getting ice cream after all. 

We walked back down to the fake town square in the middle of the fake Bavarian village where the laser show was going to happen. We were still a little early but had run out of things to see on our tour so we took seats and waited. Mrs. Reinbold was very pleased with her decision to stick around and see it. She watched in amazement the same way a child would. I was really tired and just wanted to be asleep, but there was something about witnessing the joy she was experiencing that put my own frustrations on the back burner. I tried for a moment to live vicariously through a grown woman, married with two teenage kids, seeing her first laser light show. Even if that same grown woman had prevented me from buying ice cream a few hours earlier.