Remembering North Main Tavern: A Lost Rockford Neighborhood Landmark

 There was a time when the intersection of North Main and Auburn Streets in Rockford looked considerably different than it does today. Before the landscaped roundabout, before Veterans Memorial Circle, and before the reconstruction that transformed the North End, there was North Main Tavern.

For generations, it was one of those neighborhood establishments that seemed as permanent as the street itself. Its weathered exterior and distinctive roadside sign belonged to an older Rockford, when taverns were not simply places to buy a drink but fixtures of neighborhood life.

North Main Tavern opened in 1934, according to the roadside architecture archive RoadsideArchitecture.com. Its vintage sign, photographed in 2012, may have dated to the original establishment. By then, the tavern had survived nearly eight decades of changes to the city around it.

A Tavern at the Crossroads

The tavern occupied a particularly recognizable piece of Rockford geography, near the intersection of North Main and Auburn Streets. Greenwood Cemetery stood nearby, as did the residential streets of Churchill's Grove and the commercial establishments that gave the North End its distinctive neighborhood character.

North Main Street had long served as an important commercial corridor, connecting residential neighborhoods with downtown Rockford. Its collection of taverns, restaurants, shops, and older commercial buildings reflected the gradual development of the city's west side.

North Main Tavern belonged to that landscape. It was not an architectural monument or a grand civic institution. It was something more ordinary, and perhaps for that reason more deeply embedded in the memories of people who lived nearby.

The End of an Era

By the late 2000s, Rockford was planning a substantial reconstruction of the North Main and Auburn intersection. The city's Envision North Main Street planning document recommended a roundabout as part of a broader effort to improve traffic flow and strengthen the surrounding commercial district.

The project required changes to the existing streetscape, including the removal of several older structures.

North Main Tavern was among the casualties.

In 2013, the tavern announced that it would relocate because its longtime building was being demolished to accommodate the new two-lane roundabout. Its familiar sign disappeared along with the building. The establishment's disappearance marked the end of nearly 80 years at the intersection.

The reconstructed intersection was dedicated on November 8, 2013, as Veterans Memorial Circle. Its memorial recognizes the area's military history, particularly the hundreds of veterans buried in nearby Greenwood Cemetery.

The project gave the intersection a new identity, but it also erased part of the physical landscape that longtime Rockford residents remembered.

What Happened to North Main Tavern?

The original tavern should not be confused with the later North Main Bar at 1428 North Main Street.

That location had previously housed another longtime neighborhood establishment, The Barn. North Main Bar subsequently operated there for approximately seven years before closing in early 2022.

In February 2024, the building reopened as The GOAT Pub and Grill following an extensive renovation by owner Tom McDonald. The property itself dates to 1935 and retains elements of its earlier tavern history, including its ornate back bar.

Although these establishments share a connection to the North End's tavern tradition, the building at 1428 North Main is not the surviving original North Main Tavern.

The Places We Remember

Cities are continually replacing themselves. Streets are widened, intersections redesigned, buildings demolished, and new businesses take the places of old ones.

Sometimes the improvements are substantial. Sometimes the losses are difficult to measure.

North Main Tavern was never likely to appear on a list of Rockford's great architectural treasures. But places like it are important to a city's history precisely because they were ordinary. They were the places where people stopped after work, recognized familiar faces, exchanged neighborhood news, and accumulated the small experiences that eventually become local history.

Today, thousands of motorists travel through Veterans Memorial Circle without necessarily knowing what once occupied the surrounding ground.

But for longtime Rockford residents, North Main Tavern remains part of the landscape, even if it can no longer be seen.

Some buildings disappear from the street long before they disappear from memory.

 

Der Rathskeller: 88 Years of German Food on Auburn Street

For generations of Rockford residents, you hardly needed to give directions to Der Rathskeller. You just said 1132 Auburn Street.

Der Rathskeller opened there in 1931, when Fred Goetz, a Wisconsin native of German descent, established a sausage shop and delicatessen on Rockford's North End. What began as a small neighborhood business grew into one of Rockford's longest-running and most recognizable restaurants, serving German food from the same Auburn Street location for 88 years.

The menu became part of the institution: sausages, sauerkraut, schnitzel, German potatoes, sandwiches and beer. By 2010, local tourism materials were still describing Der Rathskeller as a Rockford favorite where "German ancestry" showed through in both its lunch sandwiches and traditional family-style German dinners.

The Rathskeller Rockford. Ya, ya, ya. 

But Der Rathskeller was one of those Rockford places where the building, atmosphere and accumulated memories mattered almost as much as the food.

For roughly four decades, the restaurant was owned by former Rockford schoolteacher and principal Betty Giesen. Under Giesen, Der Rathskeller became firmly embedded in North End life. She added the restaurant's outdoor beer garden in 2009, creating another feature that would become closely identified with the place. When Giesen retired in 2016, her son Mike DuPre took over and operated Der Rathskeller for another three years.

And then there was the commercial.

For decades, Rockford radio listeners heard a polka-backed Der Rathskeller jingle performed in an exaggerated German accent by local radio engineer Chuck Ingle. The advertisement became so familiar that generations of Rockfordians could probably have recited the address without ever looking it up:

1132 Auburn Street.

And, inevitably:

Yah, yah, yah.

The commercial became one of those peculiar bits of shared Rockford culture — something meaningless to almost anyone from somewhere else but instantly recognizable to people who grew up here.

Like many old Rockford institutions, Der Rathskeller even accumulated a ghost story. Tales circulated that founder Fred Goetz occasionally returned to keep an eye on things in the basement. Whether Goetz ever actually punched in for the supernatural night shift is another question, but a restaurant doesn't stay in the same place for nearly nine decades without acquiring a few stories.

The original Der Rathskeller closed in December 2019 after 88 years in business. There was hope that the closing wouldn't be permanent, and new owners purchased the property the following spring. After extensive renovations, the restaurant reopened in October 2020 as Rathskeller Rockford.

The timing could hardly have been worse.

Opening a restaurant during the COVID-19 pandemic proved an uphill battle, and the revived Rathskeller closed in October 2021, just one year and 13 days after reopening. The Auburn Street building then sat vacant for more than three years.

But 1132 Auburn Street wasn't finished being a restaurant.

In 2024, the property was purchased by Barbara and Claudio Pennacchi. Their daughter Lia Pennacchi and her husband, chef Chase Williams, transformed the historic space into Plume, an upscale-casual restaurant specializing in the cuisine of Northern Italy, particularly the traditions of Emilia-Romagna, where the Pennacchi family has roots. Plume opened June 19, 2024.

Plume

The cuisine changed from German to Italian, but the new owners didn't try to erase what had come before them. Original Der Rathskeller artifacts, including an old liquor license and menu, were preserved as part of the building's story. The old beer garden became Plume's patio and spritz bar.

That's probably a fitting fate for one of Rockford's great restaurant addresses.

Restaurants disappear. Menus change. Owners retire. Signs come down. The places that survive longest aren't necessarily preserved exactly as they were.

Sometimes the building survives because somebody finds another reason for people to gather there.

More than 90 years after Fred Goetz opened his sausage shop and delicatessen, people are still going out for dinner at 1132 Auburn Street.

The food is Italian now.

But Rockford still knows the address.