Prost! MSN — Restaurant in Madison

. I showed up early. Not just "a few minutes" early—before they even officially opened. It was my birthday and time had lost meaning. Inside, the tavern was already halfway packed with soccer zealots chanting in unintelligible dialects of joy, grief, and Bavarian bravado. Behind the bar stood a man—grizzled, ageless, forged in the ale-slicked fires of ancient taverns. A bartender? No. A sage. A patriarch. You could tell by the way he poured a pilsner: this man loved every soul who walked through his door like they were a prodigal child returning from war.

I approached him and said, “I have a large party coming.” His eyes twinkled like a man who has stared into the abyss and seen bratwursts staring back. He nodded—not in fear, not in surprise—but in readiness.

Outside we took our seats under umbrellas grander than the sails of Odysseus’s ship, and then… the pretzel came.

This was not a pretzel. This was a monolith, a carbohydrate colossus that cast a shadow across three counties. I asked if it was fresh—they nodded like I’d insulted their grandmother by even daring to question it. This wasn’t DiGiorno. This wasn’t delivery. This was divine intervention baked into dough and consecrated in a golden crust.

And the beer cheese? You could baptize a child in this beer cheese and they’d emerge fluent in German, humming polka, and demanding mustard.

It was so good we ordered another. It was so good, the police showed up. Sirens in the distance. Lights flashing. We thought they were there to shut down an unregulated flavor rave. Turns out it was a wellness check on the neighbors—but I like to think the scent of pretzel nirvana wafted too far, too fast.

By the time I’d crushed a full liter of cider and sweat only slightly under the blessed canopy, we were already discussing transhumanist furry tubing adventures and how to make microwaves emotionally intelligent enough to curate cheese-and-cracker pairings. Someone said, “What if our snacks could love us back?” And for a brief moment, we believed they already did.

Thank you, Proast. For the pretzels, the philosophy, and the fever-dream birthday I didn’t know I needed. I’ll be back. Possibly...

If you are a service provider be careful when providing service to this company. Earlier this year I agreed to provide snow removal services to this location and several others managed by Jeff kruckenberg. After providing said services over two snowfalls and 9 months of non payment I was finally able to successfully negotiate a lower price and Jeff agreed to send me a check. This was after months of unreturned calls and messages. The check did not arrive. I was, surprisingly, able to contact Jeff again. He said he had forgotten and would get a check out to me first thing the next day. He even said he would send a pic of it being mailed. That was September 7th. I've not heard from or been able to contact Jeff since.

I am leaving this review as a second to last resort. Im sure the owner would not appreciate negative reviews of his restaurant due to management not paying the bills. Jeff, please pay your invoice!

Prost! Itself is mediocre. The beer is what you would expect. Mostly German, fresh and cold. Food is OK. Nothing special but could be great with some tweaks. Atmosphere is LOUD, even when not busy. It is what you would expect when you put a bar in a church hall. Hopefully they have addressed the acoustics issues.

Overall it is a nice addition to the Madison scene considering another German establishment in the area is not what it use to be. Date of visit was December 2022.

I guess I'll have to stop in and have a beer, on the...

Great atmosphere, inauthentic horrible food! This place has a feel of a real German gasthaus, very lively. I grew up in Germany and was hopeful that there was some authentic cuisine here. I particularly was eager to try the currywurst, as I've not seen any being served in the United States. Unfortunately, it, like the rest of the food left a lot to be desired. I got the multi sausage board and it was supposed to have come with cucumber salad. When it arrived, it had a bunch of pickled cucumbers but not a salad. When we asked the waiter about it, he went on to explain that was an error on the menu, that it was supposed to be pickled cucumbers, but that they had an actual cucumber salad there and out of the goodness of his heart he would throw it in. As we all know that's called false advertising, he didn't give me anything free, he gave me what was owed. The German potato salad was an abomination and absolutely nothing in the ballpark of being authentic German potato salad. I would recommend going here for drinks, but getting...