Frankenmuth began as a German community in 1845, settled by immigrants who left Germany because of poor farming conditions and political unrest and by people who wanted to convert the Indians to the Lutheran faith. The Zehnder family emigrated from Germany in 1846, and a family trip back to Bavaria in the 1950s later inspired them to redecorate their restaurant in a Bavarian theme. Theodore Fischer, a former bartender at the Exchange Hotel, established the Union House Hotel in 1888. His son Herman and daughter-in-law Lydia are said to have begun the tradition of all-you-can-eat family-style chicken dinners served there. In 1950 the William Zehnder, Sr., family, distant relatives of Fischer, purchased the restaurant and continued the chicken dinner tradition. In 1959 they extensively renovated, enlarged, and redecorated it in a fantasy Bavarian motif, changed its name to the Bavarian Inn, and held a week-long grand opening celebration that evolved into the annual Frankenmuth Bavarian Festival. Accented by a fifty-foot-high Glockenspiel, the inn's motif echoed Frankenmuth's German heritage. More than 20 million meals were served there between 1888 and 1988, including a record 5,470 meals on October 9, 1982, and by the 1980s it was recognized as one of the ten largest restaurants in the United States.