2025 Midwest Roadfood Trip (Part Two)

This middle part of the trip report will be entirely devoted to our two days in southern Wisconsin. They started off with lunch Wednesday at the state’s oldest Chinese restaurant – and one of the oldest in the U.S. – the Cozy Inn of Janesville, Wisconsin. 

Regular readers of this blog know that one of my favorite restaurant genres would be old-school Chinese restaurants that still have the same type of look and menu as the places I frequented with my parents during the ‘70s. The Cozy Inn is perhaps as perfect an example of the genre as I’ll ever find. It opened in 1922 and still has some of the same decor as then – including the booths. They even have a big “Chop Suey” sign out front, that having been a generic name for Chinese food in the U.S. during the early years of such restaurants in addition to a specific dish. 

And it’s an upstairs restaurant to boot! Some older readers who share my love for classic Americanized Chinese food will understand that reference. In the days of yore, many of the better Chinese restaurants were on the second floor of their buildings and required patrons to walk up a full flight of steps to get to them. I remember a few such places from the Philadelphia Chinatown of my youth.

PuPu platters aside, the menu had just about anything I could want from a Chinese restaurant, including Paper Chicken. I’ve previously posted about this appetizer that I loved back in the day, but which has been extremely difficult to find in the Philly region for many years. It’s also referred to as foil-wrapped chicken in some areas.

The special lunch platters that came with soup, egg roll and fried rice in addition to an entree were the obvious way to go. And my wife did order one of those with egg drop soup and Chicken with Cashews. 

But I had other thoughts in mind. Not only did I want an order of Paper Chicken, but I correctly assumed that lunch specials would be served on a regular plate. I was hoping for food served on one of the metal serving dishes that were always used during my early years of eating Chinese food and which come topped with a lid. So I ordered a dinner entree portion of one of my standbys – Shrimp with Lobster Sauce.

My wife’s soup arrived first. I took a taste and enjoyed it, as did she. 

Next up were her egg roll and my Paper Chicken. As it turned out, the latter arrived in one of those metal serving dishes. 

The egg roll had a nice crust, but the filling was just okay based on my small sample. The Paper Chicken, on the other hand, was fantastic – probably the best I’ve had in many years. It was tender, while the seasoning was perfect. 

Our entrees came out next. While my wife enjoyed her Chicken with Cashews, I was in for a bit of a shock when I took the lid off the serving dish containing my Shrimp with Lobster Sauce. 

The sauce was dark brown. I’ve been eating this dish since I was a child and had never seen it served with a brown sauce before. The sauce has always been light in color or fairly clear with white streaks. You can see what I mean in the side-by-side photos below. 

I mentioned this to a couple friends during that evening’s dinner and they both surprisingly said that Shrimp with Lobster Sauce is always served with brown sauce. It must be a regional difference. Who knew? 

Other differences were strips of pork instead of the ground pork that is sometimes one of the ingredients in my area and shrimp that were smaller than I’m accustomed to for this dish. While I wouldn’t say I disliked it, I do prefer the East Coast version to that of the northern Midwest. 

After finishing our lunch at the Cozy Inn – which I will definitely return to if we ever make it back to that region – my wife and I moved on to our only planned sightseeing activity in Wisconsin. It’s been our tradition to visit state capitols whenever possible while on these roadfood trips. We had already seen those in Ohio and Indiana during previous trips, so the state house in Madison, Wisconsin, was our only opportunity to visit one we had never been to. And it turned out to be one of the more attractive capitols we’ve seen on our travels. 

Part of our tradition with regard to visiting state capitols is that my wife always takes a photo of the building with me in it. The below shot will be the only glimpse of me you’ll get in this trip report. 

We also went inside and were extremely impressed by the rotunda and views from the outdoor observation deck, among other things. 

After checking into our hotel, our next stop was dinner. 

Supper clubs were found all over the United States during their heyday, which was likely the 1950s and 60s. Today, they are relatively scarce outside of Wisconsin, which still has a bundle of them all over the state. 

They were and still are the kind of restaurant that parents go to for cocktails, fine dining and adult conversation – often with other couples – after leaving the kids with a baby-sitter. 

I looked at a lot of menus and photos to pick one that would be both convenient to where we were staying and offer certain things that I associate with supper clubs – like a relish tray and prime rib. It was a difficult call, but I opted for the Stagecoach Inn of Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin, Wednesday being one of the two nights of the week when they serve prime rib. 

The building that holds the restaurant was first opened as an actual rest stop for stagecoaches in the early 20th century. It became a supper club during the 1950s and has been known as the Stagecoach Inn since the 70s. 

Joining us that evening would be two more online roadfood friends who I had never met before – Brad and Jeff, along with their wives, Kathy and Susie. Brad and I have been emailing each other at least weekly – usually about food – for a number of years. All three of us were longtime regulars on the defunct roadfood.com message board. 

In addition to the specials seen below, there was a list of regularly available entrees on the menu’s other side that I neglected to photograph. Those options came with a relish tray, something that wasn’t specified on the specials section of the menu – although I suspect they’d have given one to us even if we had all ordered specials. Nonetheless, I don’t get that opportunity every day and wasn’t taking any chances. So I ordered a prime rib and fried shrimp combination that was not one of the specials. 

Relish trays used to be a regular part of American fine dining in the mid-20th century. I still remember them from visits with my grandparents when I was very young to a nice restaurant close to where I grew up. They generally consist of celery, carrots, radishes and sometimes cheese dips and other goodies. 

But the one dropped off on our table to begin the meal at the Stagecoach Inn was not the typical relish tray. It had multiple levels, each one containing a Midwest style vegetable salad. I can be picky with this type of food, and only ate the corn salad, but there were others with peas and beets and a three-bean salad. 

Of course, it being a supper club, there were also cocktails – and a bread basket with butter. 

Supper club dinners are far from ala carte. In addition to a relish tray, they include soup, salad and sides. There were no light soup options, so I took advantage of the menu’s offer to substitute a cup of juice for the soup course. There is only so much I want to eat before my entree, and the salad, relish tray and juice were plenty. 

It’s relatively rare for me to eat salads, but I try to get at least one in every presidential administration. 

While all three of the men at the table ordered prime rib, the ladies went in other directions. My wife chose a breaded pork tenderloin – which came sans the burger roll that I mentioned in part one – while Kathy and Susie both opted for fish.

It had been a while since I’d enjoyed a good piece of prime rib and this one more than hit my spot. It came out a nice shade of pink, was extremely tender and the outer cap was beautifully seasoned. That will hold me over for a while.

The fried shrimp that came alongside my prime rib were also excellent. They were plump and had a perfectly fried coating without being greasy. 

Following Jeff’s strong urging, I chose au gratin for my potato option, as did most of our party. It was a good decision.

Dessert was not included, but at least some of us partook. My wife and I shared a slice of lemon-raspberry cake that we both enjoyed very much. Brad opted for another item that is big at supper clubs – alcoholic ice cream-based dessert drinks. He ordered one called a grasshopper that included creme de mint. 

While I was hitting my stride at this point in the trip, my wife needed a bit of a respite from all the driving and eating. So I drove into Milwaukee on my own Thursday to meet up again with Jeff and Susie for a multi-destination lunch.

We started out at a Jewish-style delicatessen that I had wanted to try for probably 25 years. Jake’s Deli was one of the many restaurants I used to pine for based on the photos of it on the roadfood website during the years when I was a frequent participant on its message board. 

It’s been around since 1955 and likely hasn’t changed a whole lot since then. 

As much as I love old-school Chinese restaurants, a good Jewish deli arguably sits at the top of my pyramid of roadfood genres, so I was extremely excited about what I was about to eat. From those online photos, I was aware that Jake’s serves hand-carved corned beef and pastrami, which is the way I prefer both. 

They have a relatively small menu, but I knew I’d be eating pastrami on rye in light of Jeff’s high praise for their pastrami and the fact that I’d be eating corned beef at our second stop and wanted to mix things up a bit. 

The counterman who makes the sandwiches took out a fresh uncut pastrami from their steam case and proceeded to carve it. Before making our sandwich, which we’d be sharing, he offered us a small sample of the meat. I expected it to be good, but I was utterly unprepared for just how good. Based on that one taste, I was prepared to call it the best pastrami I’d ever eaten. The levels of flavor and juiciness were both through the roof.

Now for the not so good part. This virtually perfect specimen of deli meat was served on what was almost certainly the worst rye bread I’ve ever had at a Jewish deli. It was prepackaged from a well-known regional bakery and probably can be bought in the same packaging at supermarkets throughout the area. I’m used to seeing unwrapped rye breads made specially for delis earlier the same day when I go out for a corned beef or pastrami sandwich. The bread’s texture reminded me of white bread. It should be a sin to serve that meat on that bread. 

Our sandwich, which came topped with spicy mustard, was being shared by all three of us. Jeff asked for it to be cut into thirds, but it came in halves. So we had each half cut again to make matters easier. I ate one quarter with bread and took some of the meat out of another quarter. 

As much as I’d have loved to have eaten an entire pastrami sandwich at Jake’s, it wouldn’t have been prudent given that we still had two more eating stops on tap after leaving there. 

Our next dining destination, which was just a little ways down North Avenue – the same street that Jake’s sits on – was McBob’s Pub and Grill. 

While I do occasionally eat at Irish pubs, they are not normally among my favorite restaurant genres and I don’t believe I had ever visited one before during a roadfood trip. But McBob’s is very well known among my roadfood circles for making and serving some of the best corned beef anywhere – corned beef being possibly as popular among the Irish as it is with Jews. 

McBob’s has a fairly large and surprisingly varied menu, but we zeroed in on their corned beef options. Jeff and Susie opted for a Reuben, while I stuck with my traditional order of just meat, bread and mustard. We also ordered corned beef hash, which again, is legendary in some roadfood circles, while Susie added a Scotch egg. 

It was brought to my attention that McBob’s offers Sprecher’s root beer, which is based out of Milwaukee and a big favorite of mine. I ordered a can to wash this portion of my lunch down. 

These photos include only a portion of the menu. It can be seen in its entirety here. 

After a healthy wait that was filled with excellent conversation, our three corned-beef based dishes were served. 

Jeff and Susie appeared mighty pleased with their Reuben. My sandwich experience was somewhat reminiscent of the one I had just had at Jake’s Deli. The meat was outstanding. I loved the way it was cut into rough chunks rather than neatly sliced. That made for an even better textural experience than I’m used to when eating corned beef. Yet the rye bread was again very weak. It fell apart while I was eating the sandwich. 

I could have listened to Jeff’s recommendation to get the bread toasted at both places, but I’m a creature of habit and also wanted to judge the bread without it being altered by the toasting process. If I go back to either place, I’ll take his advice next time. 

The hash was as good as advertised, although I only tried a little in addition to eating half of my sandwich, as I was saving room for our dessert stop after leaving McBob’s. Jeff and Susie had a cooler in their car and took the leftovers home.

Milwaukee is rightly known as the frozen custard capital of the United States. Their two most renowned custard purveyors are Kopp’s and Leon’s. I checked out Kopp’s a couple times during my one previous visit to Milwaukee about a decade ago, so the natural choice this time was Leon’s. 

They have been open since 1942 and are the picture of a mid-century frozen custard stand. We were there during the day, so we didn’t get to see Leon’s in all its night-time glory, with the sort of neon light display that reminds me of Geno’s Steaks in Philly. 

Good frozen custard has the smoothness of soft-serve ice cream but is denser and usually served in scoops rather than from a spout right into a dish or cone. It’s also made with eggs, which isn’t always the case with regular ice cream. 

While I was tempted to order a sundae, the desire to try Leon’s custard in its purest form – without any toppings – won out and I ordered a double-scoop cone with one each of vanilla and butter-pecan. 

This was – unsurprisingly – top-notch custard. It’s been too long since I’ve been to Kopp’s to say which I prefer, but they are likely the two best custard shops I’ve ever been to. Both the vanilla and butter-pecan were extremely flavorful. 

After saying my good-byes, I left Milwaukee and headed back to our hotel, where I was happy to find my wife feeling rejuvenated and ready to join me for dinner a little later that evening. 

Our final meal in Wisconsin was at Wedl’s, an iconic mid-America hamburger stand in the beautiful little town of Jefferson that opened way back in 1916. It’s situated right next to an ice cream parlor owned by the same people who operate the burger stand. 

Not only is Wedl’s in George Motz’s Hamburger America guide book – one of my roadfood bibles – but Brad from the previous night’s dinner has been raving about their burgers to me for years. I’m glad to finally get a chance to find out why he loves them so much. 

My double-cheeseburger with onions, along with the pickles, mustard and ketchup I added at the self-serve counter, was an absolutely classic Midwestern smashed burger. The patties were beautifully seasoned and cooked to perfection. 

My wife wasn’t in a burger mood and opted for a soft pretzel and ice cream cone from the parlor next to the stand. I believe the flavor she ordered was called Party Animal. It was flavored like iced animal crackers and included small pieces of them. She enjoyed it immensely. 

That’s going to do it for this part of the trip report. We began the drive back east the following morning. I’ll return with the third and final part next week. It will feature at least some of what we ate during the ride home. As I mentioned in part one, the trip’s final two meals didn’t turn out as planned and will likely not be included. More on that in part three.