The Bureau of Tourism Brings Wisconsin Nostalgia to West Town
The trendiest summer camp in Wisconsin now has an outpost in the city. In the heat of summer, the team behind Camp Wandawega in Elkhorn, Wisconsin, opened the Bureau of Tourism, a small boutique and event space on Grand Avenue. The camp, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, has become a popular summer destination for Chicago creatives since reopening roughly two decades ago under the ownership of Tereasa Surratt and David Hernandez.
Walking through the doors of the new West Town space is like teleporting over miles and miles of traffic and straight to the historic Wisconsin summer camp: the walls are painted dark green and decorated with tapestries featuring woodland animals and rustic landscapes. The back room features a wooden bar, a vintage bread oven, cozy rugs, and vintage speakers. Fishing lures, taxidermied animals, and camp pennants make it clear—you’re not in Chicago anymore.
“We wanted to have a brick and mortar footprint in the city where we’ve lived for so many decades and where the majority of our creative community comes from. We were craving a way to connect with them in the off-season,” said Surratt. “With this outpost, we get to tell the story of Camp Wandawega and celebrate how it has transcended this tiny little lake into an amazing creative community.”
An homage to the tourism offices run by the state of Wisconsin in the 1940s, the Bureau of Tourism will serve as an extension of the camp to be used in the off-season, from November to May, said Surratt. “They’re not two different spaces,” said Surratt. “They’re intrinsically linked. Wandawega is tied to the Bureau of Tourism because the Bureau exists specifically to promote creative partnership and collaborations with our Chicago friends and partners, and many times that comes to life through the culinary world.”
The space is also shoppable, featuring products from the expansive collaborations and activations that the camp has launched throughout the last few years, including their custom Pendleton blanket collaboration, Tie Bar menswear, Homer Laughlin Dinnerware, and Topdrawer.
When Surratt and Hernandez set out to find a space in Chicago, it took time to find one that fit the bill. Surratt wanted a space that had history to it, and when she learned that the location they settled on dated from 1881, she worked with the Chicago Historical Society to learn more about it. The oven that is featured in the event space is from the original building, built as a commercial bakery, where the man who would go on to be McDonald’s first bread bun supplier learned to bake. “I love that the oven is still there,” said Surratt. “It’s a great piece of history and such an important story to tell.”
Surratt is excited to open the back room, where the oven is located, for events and activations this fall. “It’s not a typical retail store. It’s really about community building,” said Surratt. “It’s going to be fun—we built out the back room to do things like readings, launches, workshops, tastings. … That’s what I’m most excited about.”
The Bureau of Tourism is located at 1429 W Grand Ave. It is open by appointment only until November, when Surratt and her team plan to open it regularly on weekends. Follow @bureauoftourism on Instagram for future event announcements.
