Sister Bay, Wis. (April 12, 2024) – Al Johnson’s Swedish Restaurant & Butik in Sister Bay (Door County), WI, founded by family patriarch Al (Axel Albert Otto) Johnson in 1949, is celebrating its 75th anniversary in 2024. The restaurant is the famous “place with goats on the roof” that has entranced Door County visitors for decades and has long been considered one of the county’s must-see destinations.
Al Johnson (12/9/1925 – 6/12/2010) was born on the North Side of Chicago in 1925, where his father was the janitor at St. Ignatius College Prep and his mother was a homemaker. In the early 1930s, Al’s parents sent young Al and his sister to spend summers with relatives in the Appleport area east of Sister Bay. “One of my favorite memories in those years is picking berries in the huge strawberry fields,” Al said shortly before he died in 2010, “then jumping on my bike for a 3-mile ride to Emma Husby’s tavern for a Black Cow (root beer float).”
Al Johnson was a paratrooper in the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne during World War II, and was one of the first U.S. servicemen to enter the Auschwitz concentration camp after its liberation in 1945. Al seldom, if ever, talked about that experience to others.
Al was discharged from the service in 1946 and while he attended Marquette University in Milwaukee, he briefly worked behind the dining counter at a Woolworth’s ‘five and dime’ store,
where he picked up some of the business techniques that he imported a few years later to the new Al Johnson’s Swedish Restaurant. Cooks didn’t get written orders at Woolworth’s; wait staff simply shouted out the orders. It’s a system Al Johnson’s continues to use today, and the result is an efficient system of amazing speed in food preparation and service.
The new Al Johnson’s Swedish Restaurant opened in 1949 in a former IGA Store on Bay Shore Drive (Hwy 42) in downtown Sister Bay, where the restaurant and its associated businesses are still located today.
In 1972, Al Johnson and his wife Ingert, who also had a huge role in the business’s evolving fortunes over the years, decided to import logs, carpenters and woodcarvers from Norway and build an enhanced, much larger
building around the original restaurant structure…with a green sod roof. When the restaurant building and its associated structures were completed, a friend of the Johnsons, Dean Madden of Ephraim, kept telling the couple “You oughta put some goats on that roof!” Another mutual friend, Wink Larson, brought Al a ‘joke gift’ of a pet goat for his birthday that year, and the business never looked back. Since 1973, there have always been grazing goats on Al Johnson’s green sod roof during the tourism season.
To celebrate its unusual longevity, despite the constant headwinds of operating in a rural community with heavy tourism visitation only during the five months of May–October, Al’s is planning a major celebratory event on its property on the June 22nd weekend of this year. Entertainment will include music by Big Mouth & The Power Tool Horns and 7000 Apart, and folk dancing by the Stoughton Norwegian Dancers. More event details will be announced soon on both Facebook (facebook.com/AlJohnsons) and the company’s website (aljohnsons.com).
Wisconsin tourism authorities congratulated Al Johnson’s on reaching its 75th year in business. “Al Johnson’s has been a Door County icon for generations,” said Julie Gilbert, President/CEO of Destination Door County. “A Scandinavian-themed restaurant with goats on a grass roof! The media attention Al’s generates, from TV shows to travel articles to social media posts, brings more Door County awareness to all corners of the globe.”
Ellie Soderberg-Guger, Community Coordinator for the Sister Bay Advancement Association, noted the important economic impact of Al Johnson’s longevity on local families. “Al Johnson’s has been the backbone of our community for generations,” said Soderberg-Guger. “The unique appeal of “goats on the roof” actually makes a vital contribution to our economy, contributing to the livelihoods and work paths of local residents.”
Since the time founder Al Johnson died in 2010, the business has been actively managed by his three children, Annika, Rolf and Lars, and Al’s wife Ingert is also still involved in the business. The restaurant and the Butik (Swedish: boutique) have been joined at their location in downtown Sister Bay by Stabbur, a family-friendly beer garden (opened 2015); Kök, a quick-serve food service operation next to Stabbur (opened 2016); and SKÄL, a Nordic-inspired standalone store (opened 2020).
The head of the State of Wisconsin’s tourism department also congratulated Al Johnson’s on its anniversary. “Like so many others, stopping for a meal and a chance to see the goats on the roof has always been a never-to-be-missed part of a Door County getaway for me and my family,” said Wisconsin Department of Tourism Secretary Anne Sayers. “Al Johnson’s represents so much about why visitors choose to make memories in Wisconsin. It’s the outstanding food, rich heritage and unexpected discoveries Wisconsin offers. Congratulations to Al Johnson’s on 75 years of enhancing Wisconsin tourism.”
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