Kwik Trip (Kenosha/76th Street)

• 8900 76th Street
• Kenosha, WI 53158
• (262) 697-7966
• Website

Is it even a trip to Wisconsin if we don’t stop at a Kwik Trip?

We made our yearly trek to Pleasant Prairie last week for the Southport Summer Classic figure skating competition at the Pleasant Prairie Rec Plex. We thought we were only going to be there Wednesday through Friday but the competition threw us a curveball. L had one more event on Saturday afternoon so we had to stay an extra day.

The first thing we did each morning was hit the Kwik Trip between our hotel and the rink on 120th Avenue in Pleasant Prairie. J and I would grab breakfast sandwiches. The kids got the fuel they needed for the day.

Our last day in town I wanted to run some errands before L competed. I dropped everyone off at the rink then I headed to Tenuta’s Deli to pick up an obscene amount of pasta sauce then headed over to Woodman’s Food Market to go through their beer selection looking for something for my Mother-in-Law.

It was getting close to lunch time and I didn’t really know our plans for the rest of the day. I knew we had to make a stop in Vernon Hills on the way home to get some skates fixed and sharpened but other than that, I was pretty sure everyone just wanted to get home as fast as possible.

On my way back to the rink, I decided to stop at the Kwik Trip on 76th Street and 88th Avenue in Kenosha. This is a funny intersection because this Kwik Trip actually faces away from the high traffic road, 75th Street. It faces what is more of an access road to the shopping plazas which is 76th Street so essentially, this Kwik Trip is on the corner of 75th and 88th but you enter on 76th. Even funnier, there is another Kwik Trip directly across 75th Street on the north side of the road which you access from 74th Street.

As you walk in, you’d assume Kwik Trip is like any other gas station/convenience store that you would walk in to anywhere else in the country. You’ll find the typical convenience store stuff like chips, candy, beer, and pop along with some grocery staples like bread and fruit.

But what makes Kwik Trip special is their hot food. Now you all know I’m a big sandwich from a gas station kind of guy so I’m not super picky. Kwik Trip blows away the typical gas station selection. They don’t make you order stuff from kiosk. They bring out a wide selection of sandwiches and snacks and have them all ready inside a large warming shelf. You can walk in to any Kwik Trip starting pretty early in the morning and going until fairly late in the evening and find a big selection of hot food.

If you hit those off times overnight or you just don’t have time for hot food, there’s a large selection of cold grab and go meals too. I’ve done this before when I was in Green Bay a couple of years ago. We hit the Kwik Trip after 10:00 so I grabbed a cold meal and used my hotel microwave to warm it up.

Each store also has a pretty big selection of salads and grab ‘n go cold sandwiches

And a bakery section with donuts. The bakery also cranks out some of the best cinnamon rolls. We usually grab a box on our way home from Wisconsin but I didn’t think to grab one at this store and when we left the store on 120th for the last time, they were out so no cinnamon rolls this time.

I ended up grabbing three things from the hot section and a couple of drinks. The cost was about $15.

The one thing I have to get on every trip to Kwik Trip is the cheese breadsticks. The first time I stopped at a Kwik Trip I was with a co-worker on that aforementioned trip to Green Bay. He used to live in LaCrosse. Kwik Trip was a regular staple in his diet and his fiancé loved the cheese breadsticks. I got them one time just to shut him up and man, she’s right. They’re delicious. They’re just Bosco sticks but way better. Kwik Trip makes them their own with a garlic butter and parmesan cheese topping. I think I got these breadsticks three times in the four days we were in Pleasant Prairie.

I went with two different sandwiches because I couldn’t decide. The first one I picked was the Pepperjack’d Fried Chicken Sandwich. I was thinking this was going to be a spicy chicken sandwich but it was really just a regular fried chicken sandwich with a slice of pepperjack cheese. The chicken was bigger than the soft bun that gets steamed while it’s in the wrapper. It was fine and was what I’d expect from a gas station fried chicken sandwich.

The other sandwich was just a simple 1/4lb bacon cheeseburger. I’ve eaten a lot of gas station cheeseburgers over the years and this one is pretty much like all the others. A totally fine cheeseburger but nothing to write home about. It’s one of those burgers that if you’re hungry, this will satisfy that hunger. I love grabbing a burger like this and a Pepsi and calling it a day.

Oh, how I wish we had Kwik Trip’s in Michigan. I love that there is always food out and a big selection. I like the kiosk ordering gas stations we have but there are so many times that I stop for gas and just want something quick to eat and I have to settle for a Slim Jim or a bag of chips. Wisconsin seems to be hoarding something Michigan could really get in to.