Green Acres, Sauk Prairie, Wisconsin

Rating: a solid 4.5 out of 5 Old Fashioneds

Relish Tray: not really, but a “supper club plate” is available as an appetizer, and relish-tray type fixings are available at the salad bar
Ice Cream Drinks: a wide variety of ice cream drinks, after dinner drinks, and ice cream martinis are available
Price Range: entrees range from $12 to roughly $40
Ambiance: classic, classy supper club

I’ve spent a lot of time driving on Highway 12, so I’ve passed Green Acres more times than I can count. It’s a friendly landmark on the highway for me, the old white house standing out from the woods around it. It’s one of the few supper clubs I remember visiting as a child, but I haven’t been back in many, many years. While we were in the bar area sipping on our pre-dinner old fashioneds, we overheard another group say “I’ve driven past this place a million times and I’ve never been in!”, which is pretty much how we felt too.

Green Acres is real classy, complete with a smooth jazz soundtrack in the bar. The bar area features a nice big wrap around bar, plus some individual tables. All of the Packers and Badgers art is framed, each with its own display light above. It’s Wisconsin sports memorabilia, but nothing is hokey and nothing is neon. We ordered our old fashioneds, and enjoyed the tail end of a Badger game. To Owen’s true delight, there were little bowls of pub mix scattered all over the bar area.

At Green Acres, they use “magic syrup” in their old fashioneds, which the bartender told us is a mix of bitters and simple syrup. Combined with a generous pour of brandy, it was pretty magic to us – a real nice old fashioned.

When it was time for our meal, we were led to the upstairs dining room, which looked just like I remembered from however-many years ago. The dining room is pretty large, with tall ceilings, dark green curtains, and a salad bar right in the middle of the room.

They don’t serve a complimentary relish tray at Green Acres, but you can order a “supper club plate”, and I recommend that you do. It’s full of local meats and cheeses, pickled asparagus, “mustard-style” deviled eggs, and a very interesting “brandy sweet butter”. The latter tastes like something between butter and frosting, and I have a feeling Owen and I will have to find some more soon. Like everything on the plate, it was delicious. This platter felt like a celebration of Wisconsin – in fact, a celebration of Sauk Prairie. Everything on the plate came from within 50 miles; Wollersheim brandy butter (just 2.4 miles from Green Acres), Wyttenbach meat sticks (3.4 miles away), The Cheese Maker cheddar (18.5 miles away), and Carr Valley cheese spread (the furthest away, at 39.4 miles). Next time you want to show a non-Wisconsinite what we’re all about, I recommend this plate. It may look like a simple meat and cheese plate, but everything was extremely local, and extremely tasty.

Another thing Owen and I loved about Green Acres is the salad bar. Of course, we love a huge salad bar with tons of options, but there’s something to be said about a more moderately sized salad bar. For those of us who tend to go a little overboard and put too many different things on our plates, resulting in strange flavor combinations (cough*Owen*cough), the smaller salad bar allows for a more curated experience. You could put everything on your salad at Green Acres, and you would come away with a perfectly appetizing salad. I know, because that’s exactly what Owen did. (Don’t miss the block of cheese above the salad bar!)

If a supper club really wanted to charm the pants off me, they would focus on the bread. To my delight, we were served a whole loaf of bread with our meal, wrapped in a nice little napkin, on its own little cutting board. Who can complain when there’s a warm little loaf of wheaty bread, and it’s all yours?

At this point, we were pretty smitten with all Green Acres had to offer, and I still had prime rib coming!

The prime rib was juicy and delicious, and I couldn’t decide if I liked it more with the creamy horseradish sauce, or on its own. It shone either way. I ordered the smallest size available, and I still couldn’t finish it (as much as I wanted to).

Owen tried the Rainbow Trout, which was stuffed with creamy shrimp and cheese and topped with almonds. He had it served with tartar sauce. It’s pretty uncommon for Owen to order a baked fish (he’s really more of a fry guy), but it hit the spot.

Though we were pretty full, it had been a while since we ended a supper club trip with an ice cream drink, so we decided to power through. Green Acres has a really impressive dessert drink menu, with ice cream drinks (like grasshoppers and pink squirrels), after dinner drinks (like Irish coffee and chocolate wine), and ice cream martinis (like something called a rootbeer-floatini). I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a supper club distinguish between ice cream drinks and ice cream martinis. I’ll admit I was intrigued, but I just can’t pass up a brandy alexander. I’m glad I stuck to what I know and love, because Green Acres makes a mean brandy alexander. It was not overly blended, with a lot of nutmeg in it, and the perfect size for a sweet treat.

We liked everything about Green Acres. It’s a classy and classic place, but still very much “come as you are”. One touch I particularly enjoyed – here kale is in its rightful place as garnish, instead of in a trendy salad. Next time you’re driving down highway 12, stop in!