The Village Green — Restaurant in Middleton

I can't recommend this place as a food establishment. If you come here, come for the beer and atmosphere, but not the food, especially if you're a vegetarian.

I was excited to find this place because I love local dives, and this one had several vegetarian items on the menu. My husband and I both ordered the vegetarian chicken sandwich. We were not asked what type of bread we wanted, and it wasn't clear from the menu that there was a choice for this item. So we were quite surprised when our circular veggie chicken patties arrived on square RYE bread. Never in my life have I had chicken or fake chicken on Rye. The flavors were so discordant and quite unenjoyable. We learned later from reading about the other sandwiches on the menu that we could have asked for sourdough or a bun, but again, the waitress didn't mention this. I'm still so puzzled by the decision to make RYE BREAD the default option. Plus, they forgot the mayo and pickles I ordered with my sandwich, so it was dry and bland.

The fries were also not crispy or fresh tasting, and my iced tea tasted off.

Service was dismal too. The waitress didn't seem to know what she was doing, and she never returned to refill our drinks or check on us -- and it was NOT busy! We were one of three tables. We had to go find her to get our check and ask for boxes.

The one saving grace of this place is the atmosphere. The decor is super kitschy, which is really fun for kids to explore. It's also SO kid friendly -- they provide all kinds of coloring books and crayons for kids to pick from while they're there.

And it is vegetarian friendly, but go at your own risk...they don't necessarily know how to...

Long story short, I've been going to Village Green my whole life. Literally. Even before I could walk all my family would lunch here, usually on Saturdays. I grew up going here. Fast forward multiple decades later I was just there again yesterday and everything about the Saturday Special is now different. The buns, patties, lettuce, tomatoes, and onions are all different. Only thing that's stayed the same is pickles and fries.

What has this new owner done!? With the amount of time this guy has spent inside these walls growing up here himself you'd think he'd know to not fix what ain't broke.

Never thought this day would come but Culver's burgers are now better than Village Green's are.

Maybe see again someday but for now I'll be frequenting other establishments in the area. Shame really, my Saturday tradition has now been retired.

I wish you well with continued success to come for hopefully many more decades to go. The only thing constant in life is change afterall, which the coveted Saturday Special has done. Not that there's anything...

This used to be our go-to place in Madison for burgers when we came to town for years. The servers were always super friendly and the same guy was always cooking and the food was awesome. And I always brought my foam pickle to see what the special was. Fast forward to last Friday night (Aug 16th).... Completely different. We sat at the bar as usual and the woman working couldn't have been snottier. She informed us that the pickles were no longer valid for specials (even though it was printed on the shirt she was wearing), because of the new owners. We ordered our usual burgers. They weren't awful, but they certainly weren't as good as they used to be. And to top that off, there was an OPEN container of fish fillets that sat on the counter the entire time we were there (almost 2 hours!!!) When I asked the cook why they were sitting uncovered and un-refrigerated that long, he looked at me like I was an idiot. Truly sad to loose a place that was so awesome...