Milwaukee Burger Company (Pleasant Prairie)
9901 77th Street It’s been a month.
There’s a really busy stretch for us every year starting at the beginning of May and ending the middle of June with figure skating competitions. We go from Ann Arbor, to Traverse City to Pleasant Prairie, WI. I had some work trips thrown in there and we added another competition in Ann Arbor for B so we haven’t been home much.
For the most part, Pleasant Prairie is the last big family travel trip of the summer. J will take the kids to Dallas in July for a competition. We host one in August at Wings West. We hope that one or both of the kids will qualify for the national competition in Salt Lake City in Utah. I don’t get to do the big travel ones just because flights are expensive and I’m running out of days off.
We headed towards Wisconsin when J got home from a work retreat around 1 :30 PM on Wednesday. We got to our hotel around 4:30 after a couple of bathroom break stops.
My parents usually come up for part of this competition because it’s only a couple hours from where they live in Illinois. They didn’t want to pay what we paid for a hotel so they ended up staying in nearby Gurnee, IL for about $70 cheaper.
We got to our respective hotels at about the same time. My mom asked if we’d be able to go out to breakfast in between the kids’ events in the morning. IF everything had run on time (that’s another loooooooong story), we wouldn’t have had time so I suggested they just come up to Pleasant Prairie that night and we could go get dinner.
When we got in my parents van, my mom pretty much said anything but McDonalds…which is reminiscent to what she always told my brother and I growing up.
I wasn’t planning on fast food anyway. There’s a restaurant I have had my eye on for the last three years that we’ve been making this trip.
Milwaukee Burger Company is a small Wisconsin chain of seven sports pubs restaurants specializing in burgers. The Pleasant Prairie location is on 77th Street near 99th Avenue in the Shoppes at Pleasant Prairie. This whole area of east of I-94 is very heavily commercialized and is the home to dozens of restaurants. I’d be back in this area several times over our three days in Pleasant Prairie to pick up food. As for Milwaukee Burger Company, it anchors a shopping plaza in front of Target that it shares with a Crumbl Cookie and a Counsins Subs.
The restaurant is a fairly typical sports pub. Right inside the door is a large u-shaped bar with dining areas on either side. There are TV’s hanging all over the space and dozens of beer taps along the back the wall. There are big, comfy pub chairs pulled up to the bar.
The dining area to the right of the bar is mostly four tops and those were all full. The hostess gave us the choice of either a large booth or a pub table. We had six people and while the booths were big enough, but I wanted to be a little more comfortable so we took the high top.
The beer list was already on the table when we sat down but I was the only one interested in it. There were a couple of familiar selections but I was in a different part of the country and wanted something a little more local.
I ordered the Never Gonna Give You Up from O’so Brewing Company in Plover, WI. This is a limited run Hazy IPA that just dropped a couple of months ago. I didn’t know that at the time…I just like Hazy IPA’s. I started to drink this a little too fast but I held back so I’d have something to eat with dinner.
My mom wanted an appetizer and she asked pretzels or fried pickles. At the same time, J and I said, “cheese curds.” I mean, we’re in Wisconsin, right?
My mom agreed once she saw them on the menu. We got the Curd Sampler which has all of their curd options. There are huge curds that come in Classic, Fire (pepperjack cheese coated in a Chipotle batter), and Mozzarella. The fourth curd is much smaller and they call those Fair Curds as it’s more like something you’d get at the county fair. The tray came with ranch, chipotle ranch, and marinara for dipping.
The waitress told us they were “Golf Ball Sized Curds” that were “great for pulling.” Of course, each kid had to do a cheese pull for the Instagram. My dad and I were both big fans of the Fire. They were spicy but not super hot. J liked the Classic which is cheddar cheese. The mozzarella tasted just like a fried cheese stick. The Fair Curds were actually a pretty big hit too. There were a lot of those on the plate and all of us ate a few. This sampler was definitely the best way we could have possibly started the meal.
I went straight to the burger section when it came time to order. I mean, this is a burger restaurant.
My pick was the Jalapeno and Smoked Cheddar Infused Burger. This monster of a sandwich is a jalapeno bacon and smoked cheddar cheese infused patty topped with Applewood smoked bacon, jalapenos, and a chipotle mayo. The sandwich was amazingly good. Again, it had some spice but it wasn’t overwhelmingly hot. It was just a really solid and really delicious burger that left just a little heat lingering on each bite. I picked the hand cut fries as my side and they were just as tasty as the burger. This is one of those perfect burger meals where everything is the way it should be.
The focus of the menu is burgers but that’s not the only thing on the menu. J and my mom both ordered the MBC Chicken Sandwich. A fried chicken patty is topped with dill pickles and their “famous” Burger Co Sauce served on a buttery bun. You can add cheese for a buck and you can add a wing sauce for a buck. J and my mom both said the chicken was super crispy but still juicy in the middle. J ate about half of hers because she filled up on cheese curds so we took the rest back to the hotel. J picked the beer battered fries for her side while my mom went with kettle chips.
L is no longer in the age range for a kids meal but she wanted the Mac & Cheese off the kids meal because it’s Kraft Mac & Cheese. The waitress kind of gave her a wink and a nod but let her do it. To be fair, she is only 13 although she looks much older which three the server off more than it would have otherwise. She got a bowl of Kraft Mac & Cheese and some applesauce and she was happy.
B is still well within the age to get a kids meal and he picked the cheeseburger. He got it just as a cheeseburger. We offered him bacon but he said no and he didn’t want any other condiments on it. He ate more than 3/4 of the meal before asking if he could be done. He got the fresh cut fries as his side but my mom and I ate most of those. We offered some to L but I don’t think she took very many. B’s burger was a simple burger but he really liked it.
I didn’t get a photo but my dad ordered the Milwaukee Melt. He told me later he wasn’t expecting a patty melt when he ordered it but that’s what it was. It’s a burger patty on marbled rye bread with American cheese, Pabst onions, and Burger Co sauce. I’m not sure what he was expecting but he said it was good and he didn’t regret the choice even though he was expecting more of a traditional burger.
The cost for our meal for the six of us was right at $100. I didn’t think that was really all that bad considering I got a beer and we got an appetizer. It comes out to less than $20 a person which is hard to do nowadays.
The Milwaukee Burger Company was a great meal. Everyone left full and happy with what they ordered. We have problems sometimes going to actual restaurants with the kids but even they were happy. We got a nice meal in with the grandparents before an insanely long (and frustrating….but I’ll get to that in the next post) day at the Pleasant Prairie Rec Plex.
SW Michigan Dining 