Frankenmuth Guide

Frankenmuth leans all the way into being “Michigan’s Little Bavaria,” and the commitment is total: alpine architecture, a covered wooden bridge, and two enormous restaurants — Zehnder’s and the Bavarian Inn (grand opening June 1959) — that between them serve millions of family-style fried chicken dinners a year, the recipe tracing back to the Exchange Hotel of 1856. Then there’s Bronner’s CHRISTmas Wonderland, open since 1945 and billed as the world’s largest Christmas store: 320,000 square feet — roughly 5.5 football fields — of ornaments, lights, and year-round carols. It is unapologetically, gloriously kitschy. Lean in.