Road Tips

Tipsy Cow - Madison, WI

Madison, WI is known for the number of great burger places that proliferate the area.  It's tough to NOT find a good burger in Madison (although there is one place that proved you can get a bad burger in the city).  One place that has popped up on my burger radar over the past year or so is a place with a whimsical name just across from the Wisconsin State Capitol - the Tipsy Cow.  On a trip to Madison late this past summer, I stopped in for a burger at the Tipsy Cow.  

The odd shaped building at the corner of King and Main St. (see map) has housed a number of restaurants over the years.  None of them have really made it.  It was in the spring of 2010 when three partners - Patrick O'Halloran, Michael Banas and Sue Kirton - got together to buy the Local, a tavern that was in the building at King and Main.  O'Halloran had extensive restaurant experience - he was an original partner in the popular Old Fashioned bar and grille just up the street from what is now the Tipsy Cow.  

O'Halloran and his wife, Marcia, bought Lombardino's Italian restaurant in Madison in 2000.  A divorce left Marcia with the Old Fashioned, and Patrick with Lombardino's.  Banas - a longtime employee at Lombardino's - bought into the restaurant and became partners with Patrick O'Halloran.  Kirton - the former owner of the Opus Lounge, a popular downtown watering hole, and a partner in the Local - got together with Banas and O'Halloran to buy that business from her partners in 2010.  (Got that straight?  We're gonna have a test on that in the morning.)  

Pictured right - Michael Banas, Patrick O'Halloran and Sue Kirton.  Photo courtesy Isthmus.com

O'Halloran traveled to Mexico to learn the art of Mexican cuisine in Oaxaca with a focus on mole sauces.  They hired Bob Kulow - who had been at Lombardino's - as their head chef and opened their new spot, King and Mane, in 2011.  

King and Mane sort of floundered for a year, not really finding a footing in the downtown restaurant scene.  But O'Halloran listened to his clientele.  They were looking for burgers, appetizers, and craft beers while King and Mane was more of a Mexican "gastro-cantina" with street tacos and torts, but they also had steaks, pork chops and fresh fish.  The restaurant felt rudderless in its culinary direction.  

Figuring that a corner neighborhood bar with locally sourced food along with regional craft beers would be the answer to a successful business, the trio of owners - along with chef Kulow - turned King and Mane into just that.  With beef from Knoche's - a locally famous butcher shop in Madison - sausages and brats from Usinger's in Milwaukee, bacon from the famous Nueske's Smoked Meats in Wittenburg, WI, and local produce when in season, the group decided upon a rural theme for their restaurant.  After a number of brainstorming sessions, they came up with the name Tipsy Cow.   The restaurant opened in May of 2011.  

I found a parking spot along King Street and walked around the corner to Main to the entrance of the Tipsy Cow.  It was a nice evening and a number of people were seated on the sidewalk patio to the Main Street side of the restaurant.  I went into the restaurant and was greeted by a hostess.  She escorted me to a table across from the bar.  They have a larger dining area on the other side of the wall from the bar, but I was fine with the table I had in the bar.  I was given a menu and I ordered an Alaskan Amber that they had in a bottle.  

For supposedly being a burger joint, there was a surprising lack of burgers on the menu at the Tipsy Cow.  They had a cheeseburger - or I should say, four different variations of the cheeseburger as in a 1/4 pound single, a 1/2 pound double, a 3/4 pound triple, and a whopping one pound quadruple cheeseburger.  Each of the patties are topped with 3-year-old Wisconsin cheddar cheese and your choice of fried or raw onions.  They also had a namesake Tipsy burger that was basically the same thing as a 1/2 pound double cheeseburger along with Widmer's brick cheese, and Nueske's bacon.  The Tipsy Cow also has a ground lamb burger with the meat sourced from Pinn-Oak Ridge Farms, as well as chicken and turkey sandwiches.  

The Tipsy Cow also has a large number of appetizers including fried cheese curds (hey, that's what their clientele wants!), chicken wings and chicken tenders, as well as loaded fries with a choice of blue cheese and Buffalo sauce, or with locally sourced sour cream and green onions, or Nueske's bacon crumbs and blue cheese, or the BBQ Ranch fries with a housemade barbecue sauce with ranch dressing.  They also have alligator bites - farm-raised alligator (probably not in Wisconsin) that is cut up, battered and deep fried, and served with a spicy Cajun sauce.  I really wanted to try those.  

But I went with the Tipsy burger.  My server, Katy, asked me if I wanted a small order of beer-battered fries for $2 more, but I declined.  And I was glad I did.  This was a big burger.  Not only does it have the brick cheese melted on top, it also had the 3-year-old Wisconsin cheddar cheese on it.  The thick slices of the Nueske's bacon were criss-crossed under the burger patties.  

I ordered it with raw onions but it came out with fried onions.  Not a big deal, but fried onions give me an upset stomach from time to time.  Thankfully this time they did not.  But there was so much going on in terms of taste with this burger that I hardly noticed the fried onions.  The bun - which was soft and spongy - was lightly toasted and held up very well with the juiciness of the burger patties along with the cheese, bacon, and a homemade sauce - Tipsy sauce, that was sort of a spicy Thousand Island dressing - all of which were swimming in between the buns.  This was a very good burger, indeed.  

I had finished my burger and my hands were greasy - I went through the napkins they provided with the burger as it was pretty messy - and I needed to use the restroom.  When I returned to the table, my half-drank beer and my finished burger basket were gone along with my used napkins.  Suddenly I heard someone say, "There he is!"  And Katy came back with my half-full bottle of beer and my bill.  She had thought I had skipped out on the dinner check.  Nope, just went to the bathroom.  I was sort of incredulous that I was gone less than two minutes and she freaked out as she thought I skipped out on the bill.  Maybe that happens at the Tipsy Cow more than they'd like.  I was mildly offended, to say the least.  I didn't even finish the rest of my beer.  

Other than being slightly offended that my server thought that I had skated on the bill, I can't say anything bad about the Tipsy burger - it was top-notch with a lot of great flavors going on.  It was definitely a multi-napkin burger with the juicy burger patties, both of the melted cheeses, the Nueske's bacon and the Tipsy sauce oozing all over the place.  The atmosphere was fun and funky, the beer selection was interesting and widely varied, and even the service was good - up until she thought I'd skipped on the check when all I did was just go to the restroom for two minutes.  Other than that, the Tipsy Cow was a great experience and holds up well against the other great burger places found in the Madison area.  

Franky's Red Hots - Addison, IL

I stay in the western Chicago suburb of Addison from time to time - especially when I can't get into my favorite hotel near O'Hare Airport.  It turned out that I stayed a couple nights at a hotel along Lake Street in Addison on recent trip to Chicago.  For years, I've been intrigued by a place along Lake Street near the hotel that is in a strip mall that faces the street called Franky's Red Hots.  One rainy evening, I decided to stop in and give them a try.  (see map) 

Frank Espano is the Franky behind the name.  The Franky's on Lake Street opened in 1989 specializing not only in Chicago-style hot dogs, but Chicago-style Italian beef sandwich, pizza, ribs and gyros.  In April of 2014, Franky's opened a second location in St. Charles, IL along E. Main Street, about a half mile west of the Charlestowne Mall.  (see map)

Franky's dining area is large, open and well-lit.  It features booths as well as tables with chairs.  It's nothing fancy, but it's comfortable enough.  On a rainy night, there were a lot of people coming in to get "to-go" orders including a surprising number of pizzas that I saw go out the door.  

You place your order at the counter and they'll call out your name when your order is ready.  The menu board is above the counter and it's extensive enough that if you can't find something to eat at Franky's, you're probably not hungry.  As I said, they're best known for their Chicago-style hot dogs and Italian beef, but in addition to pizza, gyros and ribs they also feature burgers, chicken sandwiches, pork chop sandwiches, chicken wings, Italian sausage sandwiches, chicken tenders, salads and pasta dishes.  

I wanted to try both an Italian beef sandwich and a hot dog at Franky's.  Their Italian beef sandwiches are 8" in length and come wrapped in aluminum foil.  It came with a slice of mozzarella cheese on top.  I made the rookie mistake at Franky's for not asking for spicy giardiniera peppers on my sandwich, but that was fine on this visit.  The beef was very moist and juicy with a great Italian-beef taste.  The hoagie bun was a bit chewy like it had been sitting in a warming bin a little too long, but it was still fine.  

The hot dog came with the full complement of Chicago-style fixings - onion, green relish, mustard, tomato, dill pickle spear and the spicy sport peppers.  It, too, was wrapped in aluminum foil making the bun a little chewy.  The hot dog lacked the snap of a good Vienna Beef Chicago-style hot dog, but it was still good for what it was.  

For a place that has to go head-to-head with some more well-known Chicago Italian beef and hot dog places, Franky's does a fine job keeping up with the competition.  They seem to have found their little niche in the western suburbs and continue to do what they do pretty well.  The hot dog and the Italian beef sandwich were both good, not great, but good enough.  I wouldn't have any qualms about going back to Franky's in the future.  

Jams - Omaha

One of my favorite places to dine in Omaha is a place on West Dodge by the name of Jams.  When I started Road Tips over 10 years ago, I did a short piece on Jams, but never really gave the place its due on the blog.  It's undergone some changes in ownership over the past year and when we were out in Omaha for a wedding earlier this summer we stopped in for lunch at Jams.   

Mark Hoch was a longtime chef when he decided to strike out on his own nearly 25 years ago and open a restaurant that featured a higher caliber of food, consistency in the kitchen and an honest drink poured at the bar.  Jams opened in 1991 and was owned and managed by Hoch for 23 years before he sold it to a group that had purchased Pitch, an eclectic pizza place started by Godfather's Pizza founder Willy Thiesen, in 2013.  (Click here to see my entry on Pitch Coal-fire Pizza.)  

The group - headed by Aaron McKeever - kept long-time Jams chef Jeff Newman and made him a partial owner of the restaurant.  The restaurant underwent an extensive renovation earlier this year to spruce up its contemporary decor.  Newman kept much of the American grill classics he had on the menu before the new ownership group took over and the group also gave Newman lee-way on coming up with new items on the menu.  

I had a dealer event earlier in the day that I had to attend while Cindy went shopping.  When she picked me up around 1:30 she said she was hungry and I knew exactly where I wanted to take her.  It was about a 10 minute drive to Jams located on West Dodge in the Indian Hills neighborhood of Omaha.  (see map)  

The sprucing up was subtle to me, but it had been a couple three years since I was last in Jams.  The decor is elegant, but not overly fancy.  The padded banquette seating along the wall looked like it had been upgraded and there were two long community-style tables in the middle of the main dining area, similar to the community-style tables they have at Pitch.  

We took a seat at a table on the banquette side of the restaurant.  Our server Tamara came over to greet us and to drop off a couple of menus.  Cindy got an iced tea while I went with an Odell IPA out of Fort Collins, CO that they had on tap.  

The one thing about the menu at Jams is that it's always interesting.  From fish tacos to interesting sandwiches to steaks and seafood to eclectic appetizers such as the ginger pork pot stickers with a Hoisin barbecue sauce, the menu at Jams will change seasonally to offer the most fresh locally raised foods available.  

However, the only caveat to Jams is that their prices have a tendency to be on the higher end of the scale.  Burgers and sandwiches are in the $11 to $15 range, entrees can run from $18 to $32 dollars, while salads - and they're big - run from $12 to $20.  They have a small number of Mexican food items on the Jams menu and they run $14 to $17 bucks.  But more often than not, the prices are worthy of the food being served.

As it always seems to happen when I visit Jams, I couldn't make up my mind as what to get to eat.  The Jams burger is excellent - it's a "ground-in-house" blend of brisket, chuck and short rib beef.  You throw some sautéed mushrooms, cheese and some bacon on top and it's a killer burger.  The tuna melt sandwich with cheddar cheese on a grilled whole grain bread blows your regular tuna melt out of the water.  The meatloaf with mashed potatoes and a red pepper gravy rewrites most of the rules when it comes to comfort foods.  And their Mexican entrees have always been outstanding.  It's no wonder I have problems figuring out what to get when I go to Jams.  

Cindy didn't want to eat anything heavy so she went with the crab cake salad.  I forgot to tell her that portions were generally pretty big at Jams and when Tamara set the salad down in front of her, Cindy said, "Oh, my!"  It featured a bed of fresh greens with croutons, roasted walnuts, and two large crab cakes topped with a red pepper Cajun sauce.  The crab cakes on their own would have been more than enough for her.  But she liked the freshness of the salad along with the somewhat spicy crab cakes.   

After contemplating getting either a burger or the meatloaf, I ended up getting the carnitas enchiladas with a chile verde queso sauce on the top of it.  It had a roasted hot pepper on top of the two enchiladas and came with a side of rice and chipotle black beans.  A roasted corn salsa topped the enchiladas that had been drizzled with a spicy sour cream.  The braised pork they had in the enchiladas was moist and tender and very flavorful.  With the spicy sour cream and the green chile verde queso sauce, there was a lot of wonderful taste sensations going on with each bite.  This was another great meal at Jams.  

The only quibble I had with Jams is that Tamara was a little slow on the switch.  The restaurant wasn't busy and we waited quite awhile before she came back to take our orders.  We also needed refills on our drinks and it took her quite sometime to get back to us with the iced tea and another beer.  But we weren't in a terrible hurry - the wedding was at 4 p.m. and even though we did need to get back to the hotel to change clothes, we didn't have to rush.  

Once again, Jams did an excellent job of making me have to make a tough decision as to what I was going to order.  But with each visit, the food that I did order was top notch, very interesting, and extremely delicious.  I've taken a number of people over the years to Jams and each time they came away with a very positive feeling about their meal.  I've eaten at Jams over a dozen times over the years and each visit has been a great meal.  The food has always been consistently good and there's always three or four things on the menu that catch my eye that makes it difficult as to what to choose.  And even under new ownership, that continues to be the case.  

Victor's 1959 Cafe - Minneapolis

I met up with one of my dealers for breakfast during a late summer trip to the Twin Cities.  He does a really good job of picking restaurant to meet at and he suggested a place that I've had my eye on for quite sometime.  When he suggested we meet up at Victor's 1959 Cafe in Minneapolis, I was happy to agree to meet him there.  

The building that houses Victor's was originally built as a Shell gas station in the 1920's.  In the 60's, it turned into a Dairy Queen and was a neighborhood gathering spot for many years.  In 1981, the building became Rick's Ol' Time Cafe.  It was a popular place for breakfast before the business was sold to Niki Stavrou and Victor Valens in 1999.   

Victor Valens was a Cuban refugee when he moved to New York in 1961 at the age of 11.  He eventually made it to the Twin Cities where he found a noticeable lack of Cuban food even though there was a small Cuban community in the area.  With Niki Stavrou, he opened Victor's 1959 Cafe - the "1959" comes from the year of the Cuban revolution.  

During the first few years of its existence, Victor's 1959 Cafe became well known for their breakfasts and authentic Cuban foods.  They began to sell wine and beer in 2004, and Niki ended up taking over the kitchen soon after that.  In 2007, she bought out Valens and kept the Cuban theme to the restaurant.  She remodeled the inside of the small building and added a patio for seasonal seating.   Niki Stavrou hired a chef in 2008 and got out of the kitchen to concentrate on being the sole owner of Victor's 1959 Cafe.  She continues to run the restaurant today.  

Victor's 1959 Cafe is located on the northwest corner of S. Grand and W. 38th in Minneapolis.  (see map)  I found parking on W. 38th just down the street from the restaurant.  I was supposed to meet my dealer around 9 a.m. and as I walked up to the restaurant I found that the outdoor patio dining area was full.  I went inside to see if my dealer was in there and he wasn't.  I told the hostess that I was waiting for someone and that I'd wait inside for him.  

The interior of Victor's 1959 Cafe is, well, sort of funky.  It featured a low slung ceiling, a number of high-backed wooden booths covered in graffiti, and red, green and yellow pepper lights hung haphazardly around the place.  I waited patiently for my dealer to show up and I finally texted him around 9:10 a.m.  He texted back and said that he was outside on the patio.  I walked outside and there he was at a table in the corner.  I asked, "How long have you been here?"  He said that he'd been there about five minutes.  I told him the patio was full when I got there.  He said, "I walked up and about three tables opened up just as I was coming in."  

Our server came over to drop off a couple breakfast menus and asked if we wanted any coffee.  I'm not much of a coffee drinker, but I did see that they had Cuban coffee.  I've had the sweet coffee with the consistency of motor oil in Miami a number of years ago and I sort of liked it.  I ordered a Cafe Cubano - basically a sugar pressed espresso - a double.  It was good, but it was so packed with sugar and caffeine that I thought I was going to crawl out of my skin an hour later.  

The breakfast menu was a cross between American and Cuban foods.  They had scrambler platters with black beans or chorizo, mango pancakes or waffles, a sweet plantain omelet, and something called "Huevos de la Isla" - thinly sliced smoked salmon on top of two English muffins, topped with two poached eggs and finished off with an orange-avocado sauce.  The Cuban Hash - ground beef simmered in a creole sauce with potatoes, green olives, raisins and capers - also caught my eye. 

I ended up getting the Basque Scrambler that consisted of three scrambled eggs topped with a creole stew of Spanish chorizo sausage, ham, onions, garlic, with green and red peppers.  It was an interesting taste.  The creole stew was thick and had a bit of a spicy taste to it.  I like to put Cholula on top of scrambled eggs or an omelet, but the creole sauce was more than a great taste sensation on the eggs.  

My dealer told our waitress, "You know, everything looks good and interesting.  Why don't you just bring me out your most popular breakfast?"  She brought him a variation of the Cuban Hash with two poached eggs.  I liked my Basque Scrambler, but I was certainly intrigued with the look of the Cuban Hash and wished I would have gotten that.  Of course, he said the Cuban Hash was very good.  But he also said that all the food at Victor's is very good.  "I don't think I've ever had a bad meal here," he told me.

I've been on the hunt for a good Cuban sandwich - not the pressed panini sandwiches most restaurants try to pass off as a Cuban sandwich - but one with the sweet Cuban bread and pork that is marinated in citrus juice.  It sounds like they have one at Victor's 1959 and I'll have to go back to try it.  

I liked everything about Victor's 1959 Cafe - the quaint funkiness of the place, the food was very good and very interesting, and the service was top notch.  It's one of the more popular and unique places to eat in the Twin Cities.  I don't know all that much about Cuban food, but it appeared that most of the foods they have on the menu are authentic.  Victor's 1959 Cafe is a nice change of pace in terms of culinary selections in the Twin Cities. 

Moerlein Lager House - Cincinnati

When we were in Cincinnati earlier this year, we took in a late season baseball game at Great American Ball Park.  (Click here to see the entry on Great American Ball Park.)  The night before, we were in downtown Cincinnati driving around and we saw an interesting brew pub next to the stadium and I wanted to go in to check it out.  The only problem was that there wasn't any parking in the immediate area.  The next day before the game, we decided to go to the brew pub to get a beer and something light to eat.  This is the story of our visit to the Moerlein Lager House.  

Christian Moerlein was a German immigrant who settled in the Cincinnati area in the mid-19th century.  The Christian Meorlein Brewing Company began production of beer in 1853 in the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood that was home to many of the 36 Cincinnati breweries by the start of the Civil War.  By 1890, the number of breweries had slipped to about 23, but collectively were brewing over 35 million barrels of beer annually with the Moerlein brewery exporting beer to parts of Europe and South America.  Cincinnati was truly the Beer Capital of America.  

The Christian Moerlein brewery suffered the fate of many breweries across America when Prohibition began in 1919.  When Prohibition was repealed in 1933, the Moerlein Brewing Company - as well as many of the other pre-Prohibition breweries - never went back into beer production.  One of the breweries that did go back into beer production was the Hudepohl Brewing Company.  Hudepohl survived Prohibition by making "near-beer" and jumped back into full production of beer in 1933.  

Hudepohl survived the purge of remaining Cincinnati breweries that began to close when brands such as Budweiser, Schlitz, and Stroh's began to take market share from the local breweries in the 60's.  They focused on regional branding with many people in and around Cincinnati continuing to enjoy a cold "Hudy".  In 1981 the company revived the Christian Moerlein name as a "better beer" brand, sort of a precursor to today's craft beers.  Hudepohl used the business model the Anchor Brewing Co. in San Francisco was following to produce a higher grade of beer under the Moerlein label.  Christian Moerlein became the first American beer to be recognized as adhering to the Reinheitsgrebot - also known in English as the German Purity Brewing Law - that was established in 1516 using only water, barley and hops in the brewing process.    

By the mid-80's Hudepohl was undergoing tough times and was forced to sell to a local brewing rival, the Schoenling Brewing Company.  The company eventually closed the Hudepohl brewing facility and moved all beer production to the Schoenling plant.  

By the mid-1990's, the Boston Beer Company - makers of Samuel Adams beer - had begun to outgrow their brewing facility in the Boston area.  Looking around for a brewery that would allow them to brew more beer and increase market share outside of New England, Boston Beer Company bought the Hudepohl-Schoenling brewery in 1997.  Sam Adams was brewed in the old Hudepohl-Schoenling brewery for a little over four years.

The family who held all the recipes for the beers Hudepohl-Schoenling got into the beer and tea distribution business after selling out to Boston Beer Company.  By the early part of the 21st century they decided to get completely out of the beer business and focus on distributing bottled tea.  This is where Cincinnati resident Greg Hardman, a 20-year beer industry veteran, comes into the story.

Hardman graduated from Ohio University in 1984 and immediately went to work as a sales rep for a beer distributor in Athens, OH.  In 1987, he was hired by the U.S. importer for Warsteiner beer as a salesman.  Warsteiner enjoyed a surge in popularity during Hardman's time with the company and he eventually became the president of sales for Warsteiner's North American operations.  The company thought so much of Hardman that they moved their headquarters from Chicago to Cincinnati to keep him happy.  

Pictured right -  Greg Hardman.  Picture courtesy Cincinnati.com

Even though Warsteiner grew dramatically during Hardman's tenure, he felt that he really needed to take a business risk.  Knowing the legacy of Cincinnati's brewing history, he left Warsteiner in 2004 after 17 years and bought the rights to Christian Moerlein, Hudepohl, and dozens of other beer brands that were once the pride of Cincinnati beer drinkers.  

Hardman had a four-part plan that included the return of local ownership of Cincinnati's great beer brands and build their base of sales, the opening of local brewing operations in the heart of Cincinnati's historic Brewery District and to finally open a world-class bier haus to announce to the world that Cincinnati was once again major player in the production of beer.  Hardman was able to accomplish all of that by 2012 when he opened a new brewing facility in the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood and the opening of the Moerlein Lager House as part of Smale Riverfront Park along the Ohio River at the corner of Joe Nuxhall Way and Main St. in Cincinnati.  (see map) 

The Moerlein Lager House features a large bar with a main dining room and a beer patio where the windows would open on warm days.  Some booths near the bar featured beer spigots on the table to allow people to do their own pours.  

We were seated in the 'L' shaped main dining area at a table up against a window that looked out over Joe Nuxhall Way and out to the Ohio River and beyond into Kentucky.  We were given lunch menus by the hostess who sat us and after a bit our server, Alison, came over to greet us.  Looking over the beer menu, I was somewhat surprised at A) the number of beers the Moerlein brewery has; and B) the number of non-Moerlein craft beers they had on the menu.  They had nearly 30 beers on tap, about six dozen beers in a bottle, and over a dozen beers in a can.  I wanted to try the Moerlein Altered pale ale, while Cindy went with the more hoppy - and more alcohol content - Moerlein India Incline pale ale.  

The lunch menu at Moerlein Lager House featured a number of burgers, sandwiches, flat bread pizzas, entrees such a 6 ounce filet with cheddar-mashed potatoes, fish and chips, and something called the Angry Mac & Cheese which featured melted jalapeño cheese over macaroni noodles with shrimp mixed in.  

Figuring that we were going to graze on food at the ball park, I warned Cindy not to eat too much.  She needed something and decided on getting the Applewood grilled chicken salad.  The chicken breast was sliced and placed on a bed of greens topped with a cranberry poppyseed dressing with bacon bits and blue cheese along with chopped hard boiled eggs, cranberries, and spiced pecans.  She declared the salad to be delicious.  

I thought about getting a burger, but then thought against it when Cindy ordered her salad.  I went basic and just got a wedge salad.  I'd been on a wedge salad kick at dinner as of late and this was a nice sized wedge - not too big, but not too small.  It featured chopped tomatoes, bacon bits, blue cheese crumbles and a blue cheese dressing.  The lettuce was cold and fresh, while the blue cheese was pungent and flavorful.  This was a perfect light lunch for me.

But the beer was the star of our meal.  I enjoyed the Moerlein pale ale that I had that I ordered a second one before we left.  Cindy was happy with her India pale ale.  I had a sip and it was definitely more pronounced in the hops.  Mine was more smooth on the finish.  

As we were getting ready to leave, I happened to look down at the floor near the front hostess stand and found this plaque.  It turns out that the Moerlein Lager House was built on the site of the former Riverfront Stadium and right at the entrance was where first base would have been.  The plaque commemorated the 4192nd hit by Pete Rose that broke the all-time hits record for Major League Baseball.  The plaque basically said that this was the spot where Rose stood when he received a nine-minute ovation after breaking Ty Cobb's record in September of 1985.  

The Moerlein Lager House was a neat place.  We enjoyed the beers very much - we got another one when we went into the ballpark - and even though we just had salads we thought they were very good.  This is a place that I would definitely go back to because the rest of the menu looked very good and interesting.  The service was a little choppy, but good enough since we weren't in any large hurry because the ball park was just across the street.  The Moerlein Lager House was one of the finest brew pubs that I've every been to and one that I would wholeheartedly recommend on a trip to Cincinnati.  The only thing would be to figure out where to park when there isn't an event going on downtown.   

Sickies Garage - Fargo, ND

On a recent trip up to North Dakota, I had to drive between the Twin Cities and Bismarck in a day and I decided to stop in Fargo to get something to eat for lunch.  Just off I-29 at the 13th Ave. S. exit is a place that I'd read about and wanted to give it a try - Sickies Garage.  (see map)  

Sickies Garage - whose name is sort of a take off on the Dickies clothing line (there are Sickies Garage shirts made by Dickies available for sale) - is under the ownership umbrella of Starmark Hospitality based in Fargo. In addition to Sickies Garage, Starmark also oversees other restaurants such as Sweeto Burrito with locations in 7 states, King Leo's Burgers in Fargo, and Easyriders Saloon in Sturgis, SD.  

Starmark also ran Hooters restaurants in Fargo and Bismarck since the early 90's.  In 2008, Hooters moved to a former Ponderosa Steakhouse on Fiechtner Drive in Fargo. When the franchise agreement ended in 2014, Hooters wanted Starmark to re-up their agreement for another 20 years.  Starmark's two owners - Kerry Fernholz and Scott Upton - decided they didn't want to commit to that long of a lease and they let the Fargo Hooters close.  

In the meantime, Sickies Garage opened in June of 2010 in an old Bottle Barn Liquors location not far from their present building.  Its 50's garage-theme with a long list of burgers and beers on their menu was an instant hit in Fargo.  It was apparent that they needed to expand and Starmark closed the Fargo Hooters they moved Sickies Garage to the building and gave the building its distinctive garage decor.  (Starmark also closed the Bismarck Hooters and opened a Sickies Garage in the same building earlier this year.)   

I pulled into Sickies Garage around 1:30 on a warm afternoon.   I was greeted by a young lady, Teresa, who told me that I could sit anywhere.  I pulled up to a table near the bar that had 50 beer taps lined up along the back side.  She asked me what I'd like to drink and I asked what they had for beers.  She looked at my table and said, "Oh!  You don't have a beer list."  She found one on another table and I looked through it quick and found a Boulder Cold Hop.  I ordered a tall one of those.  Even though it was listed under pale ales, the Cold Hop is more of a British-style ale.   (The beer list changes on a regular basis at Sickies Garage.) 

The decor of Sickies is car-centric with a number of NASCAR flags and memorabilia in the place.  There's also a number of flat screen televisions throughout the dining/bar area at Sickies so if there's a sporting event on TV, they probably have it on.  Sickies also hosts bike nights and vintage car nights on a regular basis in the summer months.  

The menu at Sickies Garage also touts 50 different burgers in addition to a large number of appetizers such as fried pickles, quesadillas, jalapeño poppers and chicken wings that offer over a dozen different type of sauces to go along with them.   They also have a number of sandwiches including a reuben, turkey and Swiss, pulled pork and a meatloaf sandwich.  

Some of the burgers were pretty interesting.  They included a burger with glazed donut instead of a bun, a Cuban burger topped with mayo, mustard, smoked ham, pickles and Swiss cheese, a burger topped with chili, cheese and fries, and the "Twin Cam" burger that features a burger topped with bacon and sandwiched between two Texas toast-sized grilled cheese sandwiches.  Their signature burger is the Sickies burger (pictured right) that features a burger topped with a fried egg, bacon, onion rings, pulled pork with barbecue sauce, American cheese and finished with some Frank's Hot Sauce.  It recently won the "Best Burger in Fargo" contest for 2015.  Sickies also has a food challenge burger - the Victory Lap Challenge - that features two patty melts and a grilled cheese sandwich in the middle.  Then they fill everything up with pulled pork, fried eggs, boneless chicken wings, fried jalapeños, fried pickles, barbecue sauce and hot sauce, then serve it with a pound of fries.  In total, that's over five pounds of food.  I don't like to glorify food challenges, but that is a ridiculous amount of food.  

I ordered up the mushroom and Swiss burger and asked Teresa if they could put some of their pepper bacon on top of the burger.  She said it was no problem.  I got a choice of a number of sides - fries, onion rings, baked beans and potato salad were among the choices.  But I ended up getting the unofficial state food of Minnesota - even though I was just across the Red River of the North in North Dakota - tater tots.

Keeping the industrial theme to the restaurant, the burger and tater tots were served on a metal baking tray.  I went to put condiments on the burger and I was surprised to find that there were - maybe - six slices of mushroom on the burger and the Swiss cheese was nearly non-existent.  I kind of looked at it for a moment in disbelief.  They did have a couple slices of thick cut pepper bacon on top of the burger patty, so that part worked out.  

From the first bite, I knew there was something wrong.  First of all, the bun tasted like it was past the expiration date.  It was dry and and hard on top.  It was not very good.  I ended up tearing the bun away from the burger a couple of times before I ended up just taking the top bun off and eating it with a knife and fork.  The burger patty, itself, was pretty good - a nice juiciness to the patty.  The pepper bacon had a delightful spicy taste that helped the overall taste of the burger patty.  But the lack of Swiss cheese and mushrooms were a detriment, and the bad bun was just a major disappointment.  The saving grace - the tater tots with some hot sauce dribbled onto each one was a nice plus.  But this was far from a good burger.

The Swiss and mushroom burger I had at Sickies Garage (topped with the pepper bacon) was a major disappointment.  The bun was dried out, they skimped tremendously on the cheese and mushrooms and this caused the overall taste of the burger to suffer.  Without the bun, the burger patty was good and juicy.  But overall, it was not a good burger.   I will say that Teresa's service was efficient and friendly.  And the decor and ambience of Sickies was interesting, at best.  While I really wanted to like this place, I don't know if I'll give them another chance at some point.  This visit was really disappointing.  

The Red Pines Bar and Grill - Onalaska, WI

I was up in the La Crosse area for the night earlier this year as I had an appointment with a dealer in the morning.  I asked the front desk people at the hotel if there were any "supper club"-type places in the area.  One of them came up with the suggestion of the Red Pines Bar and Grill up the road a bit in Onalaska.  "It's sort of tough to find," she told me.  "But my husband and I like it a lot."  With an address plugged into my GPS, I took off to find the Red Pines Bar and Grill.  

In 2008, Mark Koblitz - a rental property owner in La Crosse - bought the former Red Sails Campground and Resort along Lake Onalaska which is part of the Mississippi River north of the city.  He briefly contemplated building either a storage unit or an apartment building on part of the site before he decided to build a restaurant.  But he didn't want it to be like any other campground/neighborhood bar that did cheap burgers and frozen pizzas in convection ovens.  He wanted a place that would be nice with fresh fish dinners, steaks and high quality foods.  

Koblitz broke ground on the restaurant in November of 2008 and built much of the bar and tables for the restaurant himself out of white pine wood.  He made a small patio area off to the side that looked out onto the lake through the thick trees out back.  The restaurant did have burgers and pizza, but they were high quality burgers and the pizzas were made from scratch with fresh ingredients.  Dinners included fresh fish, steaks and chicken entrees.  

Running a restaurant was a daunting task for Koblitz and he eventually sold the bar and grill to a couple of his regular patrons, Barbara and Larry Leis.  Barbara Leis had been a longtime cafe owner in La Crosse before retiring to take care of her mother in 2006 and Larry Leis had recently retired as a business management consultant.  Barbara missed the interaction between customers and when the opportunity to buy the Red Pines came up, the Leis' jumped on it.  The Leis' are joined in the restaurant by their son-in-law Robin Godolphin who had run the Dark Horse Bar and Grill in Boulder, CO for five years.  They kept much of the food on the menu, adding their own little twists here and there.  

It was around 7:30 when I pulled into the Red Pines.  It was sort of a confusing way to get to the restaurant, but the GPS brought me right to the parking lot.  (see map)  There was plenty of parking and I found a spot near the building.

It was a beautiful evening with a nearly full moon rising over the trees in the southeast. I contemplated eating out in the patio area as it was very nice out there.   But it was sort of warm and humid, and I was also worried about mosquitoes annoying me while I was trying to eat.   

I decided to eat inside in the dining room.  The dining area is a large open space with a three sided bar as the centerpiece.  Large suspension beams hung over the dining room with a number of wall-mounted flat panel televisions showing baseball games.  I took a seat at one of the white pine tables near the bar.  My server for the evening - Kelly - came over to give me a menu and to take my beer order.  I saw that they had the Alaskan Icy Bay IPA in bottles and I like that beer very much.  That was a no brainer for my beer choice.  

Quite actually, calling the Red Pines a "supper club" is somewhat of a stretch.  They do have steaks on the menu, but the only "real" steak is a 10 ounce sirloin steak and an 8 ounce chopped sirloin.  They have a pan-fried walleye on the menu, as well as perch, haddock and catfish filets.  They have three chicken entrees including a Key West chicken breast that's marinated in soy, lime and honey, grilled and served with rice.  

They had eight burgers on the menu and all of them sounded interesting, but I had a burger earlier in the day.  Sandwiches on the menu consisted of grilled chicken offerings, a roast beef and Swiss cheese sandwich, and a couple fish sandwiches.  Appetizers included cheese curds (hey, it IS Wisconsin!), battered mushrooms and chicken tenders. 

When Kelly came over to ask if I had any questions, I asked her about the tenderloin tips - beef tips sautéed with mushrooms and onions, then topped with a cheese sauce. I asked if the cheese was fresh cheese slices or if it was a warm cheese sauce.  She confessed that it was a cheese sauce.  I told her to give me a couple more moments to check out the menu.

I had noticed that a pizza was brought to a table near mine.  It was a thin-crust, party-cut pizza just as I like.  I was a little leery of getting a pizza, but I thought I'd give it a shot.  That's what I ordered from Kelly when she came back.

I ordered a 10" pizza with my standard Italian sausage, pepperoni and mushroom toppings.  And when Kelly delivered it to the table I was even more apprehensive because it was served on a round piece of cardboard.  I grew up in a town where they had pre-made pizza crusts where they slapped the stuff on top, baked it and served it on a cardboard circle.  

But from my first bite, all my fears were allayed.  The crust was crispy, but not overcooked.  The sausage came in the large chunks that I like.  The spicy and salty pepperoni came in large circular slices and the mushrooms - seemingly from a can - were all right.  Definitely not a deal breaker.  The sauce had a sweet tomato taste and thick consistency.  The only quibble I'd have with the pizza is that they appeared to scrimp on the mozzarella.  This was a good pizza - not the best I've had, but surprisingly good for what I was expecting.  

While the Red Pines isn't quite a supper club, it was still a good place to go for a meal.  The pizza was surprisingly good and I had little, if anything, bad to say about it.  Kelly's service was prompt and efficient.  The atmosphere was welcoming and had that Northwoods lake feel to the place.  The Red Pines Bar and Grill was a good find in the La Crosse area. 

Bull Moose Bar and Grille - Sandwich, IL

I was reading in a western suburban Chicago visitors guide about a place that had a good burger in Sandwich, IL,  located just beyond the fringes of the far western suburbs.  I was in Naperville for my last stop of a trip into the Chicago area and I decided to take the long way home and stop in at the Bull Moose Bar and Grille to check the place out.  

The defining feature of the Bull Moose Bar and Grille is the distinctive late-19th century railroad car that is part of the restaurant.   The former Pullman Palace car was built in 1893 and was initially shown at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago later that year.  It was put into service by the Burlington (now the Burlington Northern Sante Fe) railroad and was part of their special "Pride of Burlington" train.  

In 1904, the train car was given to President Theodore Roosevelt to use during his presidential campaign and returned to the Burlington railway after Roosevelt was elected.  The train car was put back into use for another presidential election in 1908 as William Howard Taft's official transportation carriage.  Taft - Roosevelt's handpicked successor - won the election, as well. 

Roosevelt wasn't happy with the policies that Taft brought forth and he tried to wrestle the Republican Party's 1912 presidential nomination from the President.  When he failed to do so, Roosevelt ran on his own Progressive Party (or "Bull Moose" Party) ticket for the presidency.  Figuring the train car had good karma since it was used by the last two winners of Presidential elections, he got the car from the Burlington railway and used it to criss-cross the United States for his campaign.  Unfortunately for Teddy Roosevelt, his campaign only split the Republican vote, but he succeeded in getting Taft out of office as Woodrow Wilson became President of the United States.  

The train car continued on the Burlington line until it was retired in the early 30's.  In 1934, Sandwich resident Henry Tattersal bought the train car for $75 dollars and moved it from California to Sandwich.  He redesigned the train car as a diner and opened it later that year and simply called it "The Diner".  In 1935, a gentleman by the name of Wright bought the diner and moved it across the street to its present day location next to a house and renamed it Wright's Diner.  

The train car diner has gone through a number of owners and name changes over the years, eventually incorporating the house into part of the restaurant  It has been known as Paul's Diner, Cucina Plata, Kelly's Pub and the American Grill.  However, the diner closed in 2008 and sat vacant for a couple years.  That's when Ron and Sue Saballas came into the picture.  

Ron Saballus was a well-known real estate developer and Sue ran her own antique business for nearly 25 years.  They found themselves as empty-nesters and wanted to do something else with their lives.  The Saballus' bought the train car and house and along with their two sons they painstakingly restored the inside building and car, as well as spruced up the outside that had deteriorated over time.  Sue Saballus used her antique connections to find lighting fixtures and decorations to restore the train car to its original splendor when Teddy Roosevelt used it a century before.  They even restored the original leaded glass windows along the top of the railcar.  The Saballus family opened their restaurant in 2010 choosing the Bull Moose Bar and Grille name as a nod to the historical significance of the rail car.

The Bull Moose is located on the southeast corner of W. Church and Main St. in Sandwich.  (see map)  There was a parking spot in front of the building that I took as I didn't really see much parking in the area.  (There is a small parking lot in the back and along Main St.)  

I went into the place and immediately came into a bar area.  The train car was off to the left side of the entrance.  The bar area was very nice - there was a three-sided bar, a number of tables and chairs, and a gaming area was back toward the corner.  I decided that I wanted to have lunch at the bar, so I bellied up there.  I was greeted by one of the bartenders, Sammy, who gave me a menu and got me a beer to have while I figured out what to get.  

I looked up the Bull Moose on line before I went there and found out that they had recently won a "best burger" contest in the far western suburbs of Chicago.  Even though they had other items such as sandwiches, flat bread pizza, appetizers and entrees that include a rib eye steak dinner, fettuccine alfredo with a choice of chicken or steak, and a panko bread-crumb tilapia, I went with the burger.  

I ordered the 1/2 lb. burger with Swiss cheese, mushrooms and bacon.  I saw that they had onion straws on the menu and I'd rather have onion straws than rings.  However when Sammy brought the burger out to me, it turned out they were more of a smaller onion ring than an onion straw.  It wasn't a deal breaker, but these weren't onion straws.  

The burger was piled high with sautéed mushrooms on top of a thick slice of Swiss cheese covering the thick burger patty with a couple thick slices of bacon between the cheese and mushrooms.  The bun crown was lightly toasted.  

From the first bite, it was an excellent burger.  It had that flat-grilled taste with just enough juice cooked in to make it a multi-napkin burger.  I went, "Mmmm...." after the first bite and probably said it a couple other times during the course of eating the burger.  The bun held together very well with the juiciness of the burger patty along with the messiness of the cheese, mushrooms and bacon.  This was simply an outstanding burger.

The onion "rings" were all right.  As I said, they weren't onion straws as advertised, but they were fine.  I didn't concentrate too much on the onion rings as the burger was definitely the star of the meal.  

As I said, the burger at the Bull Moose Bar and Grille was simply outstanding.  The decor of the place and the history behind the train car was also very nice and very interesting.  Sammy was friendly and her service was very efficient.  The overall experience was overwhelmingly positive.  The Bull Moose is a place that I would love to have in my neighborhood.

El Loro - Bloomington, MN (American Blvd.)

When I go to the Twin Cities, I like to stay at the Hilton Garden Inn in Bloomington.  Just down the street from the hotel, I've noticed a sign for a Mexican restaurant - but I didn't really see a restaurant.  It turns out that the restaurant was embedded in the ground floor of the Southgate Office Plaza at 5001 W. American Blvd. (see map)  One night on a recent trip to the Twin Cities I decided to give El Loro a try.  

It turns out that there are a number of El Loro (which means the parrot in Spanish) Mexican Restaurants in the area.  However, not all of them are owned by the same person.  In fact, there are two different El Loro ownership groups in the Twin Cities.  There is the original El Loro in suburban Burnsville that begat three other restaurants and is owned by Alex and Marcos Gomez.  The Gomez brothers also have stakes in local restaurants El Toro and El Azteca.  The El Loro that I visited is part of a six location chain that is owned by franchisee Rueben Arellano.   

I got into El Loro around 8 p.m. this particular evening.  The bar area looks like it may have been a sports bar at one point in time.  There were flat panel televisions all through the well lit room with a large rectangular bar situated in the center.  They also have an outdoor patio area, but it was raining that particular evening so no one was seated out there.  

I was guided to the dining area off to the side of the bar area, shown to expansive booth and given a menu to look through.  My server came over to greet me and I ordered a margarita on the rocks.  "Small, medium or large," he asked me.  Well, large, of course!

A basket of chips accompanied by a large bowl of thick salsa was brought to my table once I settled in as I was looking through the menu.  A small bowl of what appeared to be a cojita queso dip came with the chips.  However, it turned out to be something along the lines of a sour cream sauce with some herbs mixed in.  It was sort of like a ranch dressing, but only more thick.  I don't think I've had anything like that served to me at a Mexican restaurant before.  While the salsa was very good, I was a little apprehensive of the sour cream concoction.

The margarita, well, it was a BIG-ASSED margarita!  I had to put a sauce bottle by the side of the glass to show the size of the thing.  It was your basic margarita with the mix and all.  Good enough for what I needed that evening.  

The food at this El Loro was your standard Mexican fare - fajitas, enchiladas, burritos, and tacos in various forms and varieties.  They did have grilled fish tacos on the menu and I almost pulled the trigger on those, given that I'm a sucker for good fish tacos.  But something else that I saw on the menu caught my eye.  

I ended up getting the enchiladas verdes - three corn tortillas filled with shredded machaca beef with a tomatillo sauce on top.  Guacamole, chopped tomatoes and shredded lettuce were on the side along with a bed of Mexican rice.  Normally, most Mexican restaurants serve refried beans with an entree like this.  This didn't have refried beans, which was more than fine with me.  

The enchiladas were very good.  The beef was tender and had a nice Mexican seasoning.  The salsa verde was delicious with the corn tortillas and beef.  They weren't big, but that was also fine with me.  The guacamole was pretty salty for me.  But that didn't detract from what was a pretty good Mexican dinner that particular evening.  

While I can't say that the El Loro I ate at was the best Mexican food I've had, it was serviceable enough.  The enchilada verdes were well above average and very tasty.  The service I received was good and the huge margarita - probably a half-pitcher if you measured it out - was a pretty good value.  I can't find much to complain about my visit to El Loro.  The experience was far from disappointing.  

Unk's Burgers - Lee's Summit, MO

I had a meeting with a prospective dealer in the Kansas City, MO suburb of Lee's Summit recently.  (I won't be putting this guy on for one of our lines anytime in the next 100 years, I'll tell you that.)  But I had a chance to try a place that I've been wanting to go to for quite sometime - Unk's Burgers.  

The "Unk" behind Unk's Burgers is Jesse Mack - an uncle to a number of nephews and nieces and known as "Unk" to a number of other kids that aren't related to him.  Jesse Mack was in the computer technology field, but found it to be somewhat unfulfilling.  Along with his wife Faye they found out that the people who owned the Holy Smoke Barbecue restaurant in the Summit Shopping Center on Lee's Summit's west side (see map) were thinking about selling their place.  Jesse and Faye walked in to the place and Faye rather boldly said, "We hear you want to sell this place.  We don't want to do barbecue, but we want your equipment and space."  Details were worked out and the Mack's - helped by family members - opened Unk's burgers in November of 2011.  

Mack came up with a special way to make his burgers adding onions and secret spice to the meat before he cooks up the 6 ounce beef patties on a flat grill.  It give the burgers a unique taste - one that keeps people coming back to Unk's on a regular basis.  (If you don't like onions, they can make a regular burger without onions for you.)

It was just before noon when I got into Unk's Burgers.  The front of the mall in front of their space was undergoing a renovation, so it was some zig-zagging around workers to make it into the restaurant.  I was greeted by Jackie, an outgoing woman who introduced herself to me and asked me my name.  And she did that with other customers that came in, as well.   

Unk's isn't a big place and it has kind of an ice cream parlor feel to the place.  There were dozens of handwritten notes and pictures from customers and little kids plastered to the wall.  The one good thing about Unk's is that they sold beer and I ordered up a bottle of beer from Jackie.  She brought the bottle out to me along with a small side of their ground turkey baked beans to try.  It was more like a turkey chili with a barbecue bean taste to it.  It was good enough that I decided to get a side of it with whatever burger I decided upon.  

And that was the problem at Unk's Burgers - they've got a lot of burgers to choose from.  They have hot burgers with habanero and ghost peppers.  They have a Basement Boy burger for growing young boys - two beef patties with pepper jack cheese.  The Unkasummum burger features three burger patties and a ground chicken patty.  I wasn't looking for anything that extreme.

I settled on the Sweet Auntie burger that came with bread and butter pickles.  I also got pepper jack cheese and red onion slices on the burger.  I asked Jackie if a double would be too big and she said that their burgers are 6 ounces.  But she completely undersold the fact that they smash the burgers on the flat grill and they come out thin with most of the fat cooked out.  I should have gotten the double.  Next time.  

The burger was simply fabulous.  It was slathered in the pepper jack cheese, but you still got that great burger taste through the cheese, red onions and the wonderful bun.  The bread and butter pickles were a nice tasteful touch, as well.  Along with the turkey baked beans, this was a great lunch.  The only problem - I was burping up the turkey baked beans a good portion of the afternoon on my way up to Des Moines.  Oh well, they still tasted very good.

When I went up to the counter pay for my meal, Jesse "Unk" Mack was back in the kitchen and shouted out to me, "How was it, big guy?!"  

"Killer," I replied enthusiastically.  And it was.  He told me to tell my friends.  I told him that I'd do better than that.  And I just did.    

I love places like Unk's Burgers.  This is a family-owned restaurant doing things their own way, treating their customers like life-long friends, and serving up some great burgers with some interesting choices.  It's sort of out of the way in the greater Kansas City area, but if you're on the south side of K.C. and have a hankering for a good burger, don't hesitate to go to Unk's.  

MECCA Supper Club - Chicago, IL

MECCA Supper Club is a place that I've driven by many times during my numerous visits to the northwest side and suburbs of Chicago over the years.  It's always intrigued me and I've wanted to try the place, but for some reason or another I never made it in.  That is until a recent visit to Chicago, I made a point to have dinner at MECCA Supper Club.  

In talking with one of the wait staff at the supper club that evening, she told me that longtime owner Kevin Shirley had recently sold the business to a lady whose name she didn't give me.  (And one that I cannot find in any public record.)  

Wondering if the restaurant had any connection to the Islamic holy city in Saudi Arabia, I asked her how the "MECCA" name came to be.  She said, "Geez, honestly, I don't know the whole story.  There was a guy by the name of John who owned the place before Kevin and I think his last name was Mecca-something."  And, of course, I couldn't find any info on that.  

MECCA Supper Club is located on Northwest Highway in the far northwest side of Chicago (see map).  The facade of the building is covered in rock and a large neon sign - similar to ones that you'd see at supper clubs in Northern Wisconsin or Northern Minnesota - hung high off the front.  Parking is available on the street or in a parking lot a couple three doors to the southeast of the place.  

The decor of the dining area is heavy with Northwoods accents - pine log siding on the walls along with some old time paraphernalia including mounted fish and big game heads in the dining area in the back.  There were old time Schlitz beer trays affixed to the walls, too. This place didn't look like it belonged in Chicago.   

The bar was actually pretty cool.  Deep blue lights accented the long rows of bottles behind the bar.  I especially loved the "Schlitz on Tap" neon sign affixed to the wall above the bottles behind the bar.  This looked like a place that I'd love to belly up to the bar and have an Old Style.  

I was seated in a booth in the back dining area and given a menu to look over.  The menu was similar to what you'd find in the Northwoods - steaks, fish, chicken, pork chops and slabs of ribs.  Sandwiches are also available with prime rib served on Friday and Saturday nights.  I was leaning toward getting the 8 ounce filet and that's what I ordered when my server came to take my order.  I also got a Sweetwater 420 pale ale they had available.

Five minutes later, my server came back to the table and she told me, "I'm sorry, but we're out of filet's tonight."  I was incredulous.  One of their most expensive things on the menu and they don't have it.  I was crestfallen because I didn't want to get the hanger steak, the steak kabobs or the sirloin steak they had on the menu.  She went and picked up a menu for me to look through again and I finally decided on the pork loin with a twice baked potato.  

Like a Northwoods supper club, MECCA gives you a relish tray and a big bowl of rolls.  I especially like a relish tray even though I hardly eat any of the veggies on the plate.  It's just a nice touch.  The relish tray was served with a small bowl of ranch dressing.  

A salad with basil-vinaigrette dressing came soon after the relish tray was served.  It featured fresh greens with chunks and slices of fresh vegetables throughout.  It was a nice start to the meal.

However, the pork loin wasn't up to par.  It was a generous cut of sliced pork loin topped with a red pepper cream sauce and seated on a bed of spinach.  The pork was sort of overcooked and the red pepper cream sauce overpowered the overall taste.  It wasn't that I didn't like the sauce - I did.  But I think they slathered the sauce on in the kitchen to cover up the overcooked taste of the pork loin.  The twice baked potato was sort of cold and I only had a couple bites of it.  I ate a good portion of the pork loin before throwing in the towel.  It was disappointing. 

And it could have been the reason I was disappointed was because they didn't have the beef filet I'd originally ordered that evening.  Sometimes you get your hopes up for a certain food that you order and your taste buds are priming themselves for that food.  Then when you're told you can't get it, it mentally throws you off.  But the pork was overcooked and the roasted red pepper cream sauce was a tad too much.  However, the service was good, and I liked the decor and the ambiance of MECCA Supper Club enough that I probably will go back at some point and try the filet - that is, if they have it.

Lester's Restaurant and Sports Bar - Ladue, MO

During our annual baseball trip to St. Louis earlier this summer, our group (my wife, our friends Scott and Marcia, and myself) met up for lunch with my friend who works for the St. Louis Rams.  We decided to try a place that I learned about after writing the entry on Dave and Tony's Premium Burger Joint in the St. Louis suburb of Creve Coeur, MO (click here to see that entry).  One of the owners of Dave and Tony's is the grandson of St. Louis entrepreneur/restaurateur Lester Miller, the man who owns Lester's Restaurant and Sports Bar in the Ladue area of St. Louis.  I was sort of intrigued reading about Lester's that I suggested we all go there for lunch.  

Lester Miller's back story is pretty amazing.  He rose from the dirty streets of New York where he sold papers for a 2 cents, to becoming a caterer at the age of 14, at the age of 17 he landed a job as a sales rep for a company selling cleaning and sanitation products.  

Miller's company sent him to St. Louis on sales calls in his early 20's and he immediately fell in love with the city.  He fell in love with a St. Louis girl and was married when he was 23.  He and his first wife had seven kids - a boy, then six girls - and Miller started a business - supplying condoms in gas station restroom vending machines.  He eventually started a company that made the condoms, but he also had a restroom cleaning service on the side.

His big break in business came when a friend introduced him to someone from a plastics company that was in the process of developing a thin-walled plastic bottle. Miller found that the new bottle design could hold toilet-bowl cleaner without shattering and splashing cleaning acid everywhere.  He and his friend partnered to make cleaning products contained in the new plastic bottles. 

Recognizing the low cost of production in Japan, Miller had the products made overseas.  The company eventually became Contico Plastics and developed the first trigger sprayer for household cleaners.  He imported cleaning bottles from Japan, then Hong Kong, Korea and Taiwan changing factories whenever he could get a better deal.  

Miller found out that Union Carbide was wanting to sell its plastics division.  He made a cursory offer of $800,000 and they countered with $1,000,000.  Miller didn't have a million dollars, let alone $800,000.  But he scraped up enough money from banks and investors and bought the plastics division.  For years, Contico was undercapitalized, but they eventually began to make money.  Miller eventually sold Contico and related companies in 1999 and 2000 for $350,000,000.

In 2000, Miller was approached by four men looking to buy land that Miller owned in Springfield, MO to build a plant to make high-industrial batteries for cellphone towers.  Miller took a look at the deal and instead of selling the property, he invested $35,000,000 in the company.  In 2007, Miller and the minor partners sold NorthStar Batteries to an equity firm for an estimated $250,000,000.

Miller was also a land developer and owned tracts of lands in Florida and Georgia, as well as in and around the St. Louis area.  He got into the restaurant business in 2005 when one of his favorite restaurants - Busch's Grove - had closed, fallen into disrepair and was scheduled to be demolished for a boutique shopping center.  He bought the building, spent millions of dollars on the renovations and reopened in December of 2005.  (Miller sold Busch's Grove and it is now closed.) 

In 2007, Lester Miller opened his eponymous restaurant - an upscale sports bar that featured New York-style deli sandwiches and barbecue - on Clayton Road in Ladue.  He outfitted the place with memorabilia and commissioned a six and a half foot statue of his good friend and former St. Louis Cardinals great Stan Musial in front of the place.  

Pictured right - Lester Miller in front of the original Lester's Restaurant and Sports Bar in Ladue with the statue of Stan Musial over his left shoulder.

Miller opened a second location in west suburban Chesterfield in 2008 and a third Lester's location opened in the Central West End in 2011.  However, he closed the Chesterfield location in the fall of 2014 and the Central West End location closed just a few weeks after.  But the Ladue location is still going strong.    

We met up with my friend around 1:00 p.m. on a Saturday afternoon at Lester's on Clayton Road in a small shopping mall that abutted up to I-64/40 Highway.  (see map)  I'd been by the place, well, dozens of times over the past few years and never knew it was there.  We found our friend in the bar area just inside the front door of Lester's waiting on us.  The bar area was rather large and featured a number of flat panel televisions.  The place sort of looked classy for a sports bar.  

The hostess took us into the main dining area that featured a number of tables in the middle with booths along the outer walls.  An open kitchen was situated in the back of the dining area.  Sports memorabilia hung on the walls along with flat screen televisions hanging high throughout the room.  We were given menus to check out and ordered up some drinks.  

Lester Miller wanted authenticity when it came to his meats at his restaurant.  His head chef was sent to New York City to learn the art of smoking and preparing meats from the person who once ran the famous Carnegie Deli.   The meat is brined and smoked in-house daily over applewood chips.  They make everything from scratch at Lester's from the bread used in their sandwiches, to the salad dressings, to the sides, and to the baby back ribs that are smoked nearly 5 hours daily.  It was no wonder I was having a lot of trouble figuring out what to get.  

I really wanted to try a deli sandwich, but the barbecue offerings on the menu were calling my name, as well.  It's not that I didn't think that I'd ever be back to Lester's.  It's just that everything sounded pretty damned good and I wanted to try a couple of things.  

We let everyone order up before I ordered a pastrami on rye with Swiss cheese.  They have two sizes of sandwiches - a regular and a colossal.  I went with the regular sized and by looking at the picture below left one can almost imagine what a colossal sized sandwich would look like.  I also asked the server if I could try some of the beef brisket that they had as part of their barbecue menu.  He said that he could come up with a 3 ounce plate of brisket.  That would be perfect!  I just wanted a taste of the brisket, not a whole meal.  

Cindy was as much in a quandary about what to get.  She wasn't overly hungry, but she knew she needed to get something.  She saw something on the appetizer menu - the deli slider combo - that was a sampling of the corned beef and pastrami sandwiches.  When the server set the plate down in front of her, she realized that may have been a mistake.  They were four small sandwiches - two each of the pastrami and corned beef.  We could have easily gotten this for ourselves.  She was a tad embarrassed when she realized what it really was that she ordered and I told her that we could get what she didn't get to go and take it back to put in the fridge in our hotel room.  

I have to say that my sandwich was very good.  I'm a sucker for good pastrami and this was some of the finest pastrami that I've ever had.  It was tender and had a great beef taste with a hint of pepper and not a lot of salt.  The beef had some good marbling, but it was overly fatty or greasy.  The rye bread was equally impressive with the laste of fresh caraway seeds throughout.  

The brisket was equally as good as the pastrami.  It was lean and tender with a small smoke ring around the edge.  The spices they use as a rub on the brisket helped enhance the overall taste of the beef.  This was some excellent brisket.  

The other thing that was pretty good on my plate was the cole slaw.  It had a good creamy and vinegary taste and the cabbage was crunchy and fresh.  It was some of the better cole slaw that I've ever had.  

We spent a good portion of the afternoon at Lester's catching up with what had been going on with my friend.  The staff was very accommodating, allowing us to sit there for nearly two and a half hours before we realized how much time had passed and we needed to get going to the ball game.  The pastrami sandwich and the brisket at Lester's was surprisingly very good to excellent.  I'm worried about restaurants that have an extensive menu, but what I had at Lester's was all good.  I can't believe that I haven't tried Lester's before this visit and it certainly won't be the last time I go there.  

Dotty Dumpling's Dowry - Madison, WI

10 years ago today I had an entry on Dotty Dumpling's Dowry on my fledgling blog.  (Click here if you want to see that entry, as badly written that it was.)  This was well before I had a voice or a clear concept of what I wanted my blog to be.  Plus it was only the second entry on a restaurant that I had published.  (The long closed Town Pump in Clear Lake, IA was the first.  Click here to see that entry.)  I first found Dotty Dumpling's Dowry in the mid-90's through a good friend who took me there when we were in Madison for the Great Taste of the Midwest Beer Festival.  It became one of my all-time favorite places to get a burger.  As the 10 year anniversary of my first attempt to capture the essence of what Dotty's is all about is upon us, I thought it would be fitting to go back to Dotty's and do something a little more in-depth.   

The story of Dotty Dumpling's Dowry starts out in Des Moines, IA where Jeff Stanley opened up a funky little gift shop in 1969.  He named his place after Dotty Dumpling, a character in a Sir Arthur Conan O'Doyle short story who was the fat lady in a traveling circus.  He added the "Dowry" because he liked the flow of the name in conjunction with his gift shop.  After selling eclectic jewelry and clothing for about five years, Stanley decided that he needed a change of scenery - both in terms of towns and business.

Stanley moved to the progressive city of Madison in 1974 and opened his first hamburger stand that was housed in a former shoeshine stand, keeping the Dotty Dumplin's Dowry name but selling no jewelry.  Stanley referred to his first stand on Monroe Street as a "burger hut" because it was so small, seating only 10 people at a counter.  It also confused some people as they thought Dotty's sold dumplings - a problem that continues 41 years later for Dotty-neophytes.  

Two years later, Stanley found a larger location for his burger place on Regent Street just across the street from Camp Randall Stadium.  It was at this location that business really began to take off.  USA Today named Dotty's one of the Top 20 burgers in the nation.  But it was also here that Stanley had his first battle with big business and the local government.  

Associated Bank owned the land on which Dotty's was located and wanted to tear the place down and put in a retail space.  Stanley had a number of years left on the lease and the bank offered him no compensation to move to a new location.  It got to the point where the developers began to tear buildings down around Dotty's and soon the only way to get to the burger joint was via a small bridge.  Ironically, many of the workers who were working on the development went to Dotty's for lunch.  A tenacious Jeff Stanley stood his ground and for his headstrong stance he was rewarded with a settlement from the bank that allowed him to move to a new location.

After 14 years on Regent Street, Stanley moved Dotty's to Fairchild Street, not far from the Wisconsin State Capitol.  This is the location that many people remember, not only for the "build-your-own" burgers, the funky antiques and sports memorabilia he had on display, but for another fight Stanley put up to keep his building from being destroyed through urban renewal.  The City of Madison had plans for the area around Dotty's for the new Overture Center for the Arts, a state of the art performance hall.  The city condemned the building through eminant domain, but Stanley - a battle-hardened veteran of fighting big business - decided to fight back.  

As the case against eminent domain ran through the courts, the city began to demolish buildings around Dotty's.  While the foundation of the Overture Center was being poured, Dotty Dumpling's Dowry stood like a lone sentinal in the battle against urban renewal.  (I had a picture somewhere of the singular Dotty's with a large pit on the three sides around the building.)  Stanley eventually lost his fight in court and was forced to close Dotty's in 2001.  It stayed closed for two years before Stanley found a new spot on N. Frances St., just down the street from the Kohl Center.  (see map)

As Dotty's moved to its new location in 2003, Rachael Stanley joined her father in the family business creating and implementing new business procedures, expanding the food offerings to include lamb, bison, turkey and veggie burgers, and running the day-to-day operations.  Rachael Stanley also instituted an annual in-house contest that allowed workers to come up with a new burger concoction and a chance to win a $150 prize.  Many of the burgers that Dotty's serves have come from those contests.  

During a visit to Madison earlier this summer, I decided to stop in to Dotty's to reconnect with one of my all-time favorite burger places.  Quite frankly, I thought on previous visits to the new location the burgers weren't as good as when they were in the Frances Street location.  I was told that the grill from Fairchild Street was brought over, so there shouldn't be any difference.  Or so one would think.  

The "new" Dotty's is definitely more upscale in decor than the previous location and a tad bit larger in seating capacity.  The old location had what one would call "character".  It wasn't a dump, nor did it have a formulated whimsical-style of decor that I detest.  Offbeat and curious would be the terms I'd use for their decor.  Actually, they had some pretty interesting things that they had on the walls and hanging from the ceiling of the old place including an old full sized canoe.  And many of those items made it to the new location.  

The bar at this Dotty's is much nicer with lots of dark wood paneling, antique style desk lamps and the familiar "World Hamburger Headquarters" sign on the back bar.  The ceilings are lower at this location than it was over on Fairchild Street making the place a little more cozy.  Stained glass windows, antique circus posters, old photographs, early 20th century sports memorabilia, model airplanes and even a small replica of the Hindenburg were part of the decor at Dotty's.  

I always liked this antique felt and chenille banner from the old location - "When Better Men are Made - Wisconsin Women Will Make Them."  This banner could be close to 100 years old.  

Something that is over 100 years old is this tribute to the Wisconsin 1913-14 Big Ten Conference basketball champions.  The twelve basketballs feature the scores of the 12 Big Ten conference games they won that year on the way to a 15-0 season record.  (They beat the former Parsons College from Fairfield, IA in a non-conference game by an unbelievable score of 50-0!)  The names of the 12 Badger players, the team manager and legendary Wisconsin head basketball coach Walter Meanwell are painted on the board.  Each time I go into Dotty's I stop to marvel at the display.  I'm mesmerized by it, and I don't quite know why.  

I took a seat near the bar at a high top table.  Over the half wall on the other side are shorter tables and a number of booths along the wall.  I could see into the open kitchen, a concept brought over from the Dotty's on Fairchild Street.  I remember that you had to order at the counter by the kitchen at the old location and you'd have to pick up your food when your name was called.  At this Dotty's location, they have wait staff to take your orders.

Billy was my server that day.  He came around with a menu and I ordered up a Bell's Two Hearted Ale.  Burgers are the main draw at Dotty's, of course.  They source their beef from local Wisconsin farmers and the burger meat is ground in-house each day and never frozen.  They have well over a dozen signature burgers including a Black and Blue Burger with a burger patty and topped with Maytag Blue Cheese, Louisiana Hot Sauce and bacon from Jones Dairy Farm; a burger topped with mozzarella cheese, fresh basil, pesto and a house-made roasted red pepper mayo sauce; and a new burger on their menu - the Green & Gold (named after the Green Bay Packers) with a burger that was topped with cheddar cheese, deep fried dill pickles and a bacon mayo sauce.  This is one of the burgers that won the employee competition that they have annually at Dotty Dumpling's.  

In addition to burgers, Dotty's also features a number of sandwiches including various grilled chicken sandwiches, vegan burgers, turkey and lamb burgers.  They also have a deep-fried cod fish sandwich and a grilled salmon sandwich, as well.  They also feature salads, soups and they have a killer jambalaya that is made in house.  

I decided to build my own burger topped with baby Swiss cheese, sautéed mushrooms, Jones Dairy Farm bacon, red onions and dill pickles.  The key to a good burger - I've always said - is the bun.  And the bun at Dotty's has always been great.  It's a soft, lightly sesame seeded bun that is neither too small nor too big for the burger and toppings.  

The burger was thick and juicy with that great flat-grilled taste to it.  This seemed to be a better burger than the previous visits I've had to Dotty's "newer" location.  The bun held together very well with everything I had on the burger (I added some ketchup and mustard) and it reminded me of how awesome of a burger Dotty's really has.  

Dotty Dumpling's Dowry continues to be one of my all-time favorite burger places, not only for the burger and the good selection of eclectic beers, but for the interesting decor that always catches my attention during my visits.   This visit reinforced my notion that Dotty's is one of the top burger destinations in the Midwest and beyond.  I know there are other good burger places in Madison, but Dotty's has been the gold standard that others have been trying to top for years.  And even the competitors would probably admit it would be tough to beat a Dotty's burger.