With it's beacon-yellow turret and its faded TAVERN sign, Mickey's is one of Willy Street's landmark buildings. It looks a bit like a dive on the outside but if you venture inside you can order some of the best locally-brewed beer and eat some of the most delicious food to be had in the neighborhood.

Coming soon to the former premises of Bunky's Cafe, the Daily Cafe & Munchkery. Maybe the Dairy Cafe & Lunchkery. Or the Daisy Cafe & Quichkery.

It's been driving us crazy for a week now. They uncover a new letter every couple of days but we've been puzzling over this all week and can't figure it out.

The last word's got to be made up, that's all we can imagine.

I just realized: None of my guesses work because of that last letter. I'll just go sit in the corner and tear all my hair out until they uncover it.

I took My Darling B to The Mermaid Cafe this morning for a Valentine's Day breakfast.

We drive past the Mermaid every morning on the way to work, and say to each other, "We've got to stop there soon" at least once a week. This was our week.

Service at the Mermaid is excellent, and the decor is cozy.

There are three sizes of coffee offered: regular, large, and bottomless. The mug she's holding in front is regular, the bathtub behind that is large.

A selection of fizzy drinks are on offer at the Mermaid.

It was a little too early in the morning for me to pop open a bottle, though, so I settled for just snapping a photo of them.

Return to Paul Bunyan's

About twenty years ago I landed a summer job at this restaurant in Wisconsin Dells to raise a little money for my final year at UW-Eau Claire.

Today was the first time ever that I've been back.

It happened mostly by accident. I had planned to take My Darling B to Wilton for a pancake breakfast and a short bike ride on the Elroy-Sparta trail.

We'd been on the road just thirty minutes or so, however, when the skies, which had been mostly clear earlier in the morning, clouded over and threatened rain.

As fortune would have it, we were only a few minutes south of Wisconsin Dells when I noticed this. I didn't want our morning out to be a complete wash, but I could feel that our original plan might not end well, so I suggested we alter it a bit and have breakfast in the Dells, maybe take a look around and then head back.

"If you wanted to do that," I pointed out, "we could have breakfast at Paul Bunyan's Logging Camp Restaurant." I've entertained B with many of my stories of waiting tables at Paul Bunyan's ("entertained" in the most generous sense of the word), but she's never had the Paul Bunyan Experience before. She enthusiastically agreed to stop.

My memory of the place is based on one summer of working there, but even my fuzzy recollections tell me the place hasn't changed much in the twenty-plus years since I waited tables there. The decor is a kitschy pioneer-like log cabin, the menu is still served "family style" in great bowls that they refill at your slightest whim, every table is jammed shoulder-to-shoulder with hungry tourists and the wait staff is still all go, Go, GO!

As I mentioned, the menu has not changed much. When you're seated, the waitress brought us a hot cuppa joe, a glass of OJ and a plate of buttermilk doughnuts.

The doughnuts are baked fresh every day on the premises and fetched from the bakery by the wait staff. When I worked there, the rule of thumb was that no broken doughnuts were to be served to the customers. We, the wait staff, were free to eat all the broken doughnuts on the tray. Not surprisingly, there always seemed to be several broken doughnuts on each tray we brought up from the bakery.

And the main course breakfast items haven't been altered one tiny bit in twenty years. I used to serve the very same pancakes, biscuits & gravy, scrambled eggs, ham slices, sausage links and pan-fried potatoes.

And this is all you can eat! They'll keep bringing platter after platter of this to your table until you beg them to stop!

The flat price, ten-fifty per person, is a bit steep, and at any other place I probably wouldn't go out of my way for it, but this was The Paul Bunyan Experience. If you travel to the Dells you simply must try it.

Lazy Jane's for Lunch

I took My Darling B to Lazy Jane's Cafe for lunch. We've been driving past it for more than a year going to and from work and it always looked so appealing, but we didn't stop in for a bite to eat until last weekend.

The food is delicious and the atmosphere is cozily like home. Although their collection of decorations seems eclectic, it all seems to share a common vibe somehow.

Are there any cookies in that jar? I wasn't bold enough to find out.


It's on Willy Street, by the way. Worth the trip for a breakfast, lunch, or just a cuppa joe.

Now I've seen everything

Those are toasted walnuts on the pizza My Darling B ordered for dinner last night. I've seen lots of things on pizza before, but it would never have even ocurred to me to ask for toasted walnuts! That's just weird.

After a magnificent dinner at Peppino's starting with crab cakes and ending in orange and pumpkin cake with coffee, I finally noticed the sprig of rosemary growing from a pot in the window. How did I miss that? As I got up from the table I pulled a single leaf and held it to my nose to savor the rich aroma. Wonderful.

Where Should We Go For Breakfast?

My Darling B wanted to go out for breakfast this morning and we'd noticed how popular Cleveland's Diner is in the mornings when we drive by on the way to work, so we swung by to give it a try.

"Popular" is such an inadequate word. There were people lined up on the sidewalk waiting for one of the seven tables or a stool at the counter. That's hardly ever a bad sign. Even better: We didn't have to wait more than ten minutes.

Barb had a Denver omlette, minus mushrooms. I had eggs, bacon and two pancakes. The two waitresses were running their legs off and the short-order cook never stepped away from his griddle. When our food came, Barb was tickled to find no mushrooms in her omlette; usually the ball drops somewhere along the way. She gobbled it down making lots of yummy sounds. My eggs were deliciously buttery, the bacon was crisp but not overdone, and the pancakes were fluffy and sweet. The food was simple, hot, and very, very good.

Cleveland's on East Wilson Street. Worth the drive into town, worth the wait.