Road Tips

2510 Restaurant - Wausau, WI

One of my last trips before my hip surgery, I needed to go see a prospective dealer up in Wausau, WI.  Since I had a morning meeting scheduled, I stayed the night in Wausau - the first time I've ever stayed in Wausau.  And since I didn't get into Wausau until about 8:30 I wasn't going to seek out a fine dining establishment or a burger joint.  I was tired, hungry and needed to eat.  Near my hotel, I found the 2510 Restaurant, a pseudo-family restaurant/lounge that featured a full menu.  I thought I'd give it a try.

2510 Restaurant gets its name - not all that clever, at that - from its address: 2510 Stewart Ave. (see map).  It has been open for 31 years and is owned by Pat Baumer and Roy Heilmeier.  Not only does it feature a full service restaurant and lounge, it also has a very popular deli and bakery.

It was nearly 9 p.m. when I was seated in a booth and handed a menu.  As I said, 2510 Restaurant features a full menu from beef, chicken, seafood and pasta to burgers, sandwiches and appetizers.  I'm a little leery of restaurants that have such large menus, mainly because they're usually OK at doing everything, but not great if they focused on a minimum number of menu items.

My waitress greeted me and gave me some time to look over the expansive menu.  She and another lady were the only ones working the vast dining area in the restaurant.  But since it was late on a Tuesday night, there wasn't a lot of people in the place. 

My diet was in full swing at this point and I was looking for some comfort food.  A hot beef sandwich was out of the question, since I'm not eating potatoes and gravy for awhile.  But something caught my eye on their salad menu - something called the Black and Bleu Steak Salad.  It was a large salad topped with thinly sliced pieces of Black Angus top sirloin steak, then a creamy blue cheese dressing was poured on top. 

It wasn't long before my waitress came back and I ordered the salad.  To help satisfy my "comfort food" requirement, I got a bowl of homemade chicken noodle soup. 

About five minutes after I ordered, the waitress brought out my soup.  It was very good.  Actually, I could have probably gotten by with just the soup as there was an abundance of egg noodles and chicken in the broth.  It was very good, to say the least.

And not long after I finished up my soup, my Black and Bleu Steak Salad come out.  There was a generous portion of sliced sirloin - medium-rare - on top of the greens and a very good homemade chunky and creamy blue cheese dressing topped the whole thing.  Sometimes blue cheese can overpower the taste of other foods it's mixed with, but this blue cheese was mild and helped bring out the taste sensations in the rather good sliced sirloin on the salad. 

But it was too much food, so I was able to finish all the steak and about half the lettuce in the salad.  My waitress asked me if I wanted to get a "to-go" box.  I said, "You know, this was very good and I could probably have this for lunch tomorrow.  But I'm traveling and I don't have a refrigerator in my room." 

With a beer with dinner, my food and a generous tip for my waitress, the bill came to $21 dollars - very reasonable, in my opinion.  The service was great, the food was very good and I was happy and full. 

While I don't know if I'm going to be able to sign this dealer in Wausau, at least I found a new restaurant that I can rely upon in a pinch during my travels to north central Wisconsin.  2510 Restaurant has a little bit of everything for everybody. 

City Grill Bistro - Wausau, WI

On our trip across the state of Wisconsin during our vacation, it got to be close to lunchtime.  And when Cindy says she needs to eat, the world stops.  Thankfully, we were close to Wausau, WI and we ended up in the downtown area of that city in the historic River District.  We were driving around trying to find some place to eat and we came across the City Grill Bistro.

The City Grill Bistro is part of the Jefferson Street Inn, a full service luxury hotel in downtown Wausau (see map).  Although Wausau is part of my territory, I've never visited the city before.  I really don't think there's much business to be had, actually, as Wausau is primarily a manufacturing and mining area.  There are some paper and insurance companies in the area, but that's about it. 

It was around 1:15 when we found a parking spot and walked into the City Grill Bistro.  We were shown to a half table booth, the kind that I hate because it looks like you're on display, eating in front of everybody in the restaurant.  But there weren't very many people in the restaurant, so we just ended up staying there.  We got our menus from the hostess and took a look to see what they had for lunch. 

The City Grill Bistro had sort of a trendy, upscale look to the place.  It was contemporary and casual at the same time.  It had a nice bar area in the center of the restaurant and one wall of the place consisted of large windows that looked out into the downtown area around the restaurant. 

Service at the City Grill Bistro was unbearably slow.  It took us nearly five minutes before a waiter showed up to take our drink order.  And then it was another five minutes before he came back with the drinks.  He asked if we needed any additional time to look at the menu.  By that time, I'd pretty much memorized everything there was as the lunch menu featured only six sandwiches, about five salads and a handful of appetizers.  We ordered right away. 

Cindy ordered the turkey club with a cup of the tomato bisque soup, the soup of the day at the restaurant.  I ordered the Reuben.  I figured that was a safe choice.  Seasoned potato wedges came with the sandwiches. 

We waited and waited and waited for our lunch to come out.  Cindy finally got her cup of tomato bisque about 10 minutes after we ordered.  It was coming up to 25 minutes after we ordered that I decided to go to the restroom.  I said, "It never fails.  The food will show up while I'm in the bathroom." 

Well, it did show up by the time I got back to the table.  My sandwich was nothing special - just a regular Reuben with corned beef, swiss cheese and sauerkraut topped with 1000 Island dressing.  I always like to get a side of 1000 Island dressing to dip my sandwich in.  Unfortunately, I was in the bathroom when the waiter brought our food, so I couldn't order any right away.  I was nearly 3/4's of the way through the sandwich before he came back to check on us.  By that time, I didn't need the dressing any longer. 

Cindy liked her turkey club, but she, too, said it was nothing special.  We had finished our meals and waited another five minutes after we'd had our last bite before the waiter showed up and I immediately asked for our bill.  By this time, it was approaching over an hour since we'd first sat down. 

The bill came to about $23 bucks with tax.  I put out a twenty, a five and a one and left it on the table.  I wasn't about to have him take a credit card and waste another 10 minutes of our lives waiting for him to come back. 

For as nice as the City Grill Bistro looked on the inside, the food wasn't all that spectacular, the service was absolutely horrid and it just didn't live up to our expectations.  We'd been eating so well all week long that this was a step backwards compared to other places we'd visited.

I don't know if I'll be getting up to Wausau anytime soon in the future, but I'll be sure to look for some other place to eat other than the City Grill Bistro.