Crafty Cow - Burgers & Fried Chicken — Restaurant in Milwaukee

The peanut butter paradise and dirtiest Swiss burgers were completely phenomenal. Caught me completely off guard with how good this tasted. The sweet potato fries were trash. But that could be contributed to the next part of my review. While I give the food five stars, the service I received deserved one star at best. Sweet potato fries can only be eaten while hot for me personally. They can’t be reheated and it definitely doesn’t taste the same cold or even room temperature. The sweet potato fries were not hard and somewhat soggy. The young lady that helped me seemed annoyed and there is nothing like trying to get food from someone who makes you feel like you are bothering them. That’s not a big deal though because we all I’ve had bad days and my outlook is always ‘you never know what someone is dealing with either personally or professionally’, so I don’t put too much into that. Where it became a problem is when I was standing at the bar waiting on my food to come out I saw someone come from the back and placed several orders on a rack near the bar. After reading the receipt on the bags because no one was there to hand me mine, I mentioned to my server that I do believe my order is up now. She seemed very busy and said she would get back to me as soon as she helped someone else and I said OK l, which it was. My food was already paid for and I even tipped 20%. All she had to do was read the receipt and hand me my bag. I waited well over five minutes and all I kept thinking is how cold my food was getting. She must’ve walked past me and my bag which I was standing next to at least a half a dozen times. It took me to mention to someone else that I’ve been waiting on my food and can she check the receipt to see if that’s mine and she did so I was on my way. I didn’t want to be rude or confrontational so I let it go. But I can’t understand for the life of me why I did not deserve 15 seconds of attention after my food was paid for and sitting there waiting to go getting colder by the minute. I don’t know what she was going through and maybe the experience of others typically is exactly the opposite. I understand it’s possible I could’ve just came there at a bad time but I do feel like this was worth mentioning. I do drive through this area several times a year and I’ll definitely be back when I’m in the mood for a delicious burger. Maybe I’ll try the other...

We visited Crafty Cow/Hot Head Fried Chicken with the Milwaukee Beer Society for a beer and wing pairing event. I had been wanting to check out both places for a while, so I was happy to have an excuse to do so! The service was great, the atmosphere was pleasant and cozy, the beer was good, and food was delicious. They offer Trivia on Wednesdays, so our group had a good time participating in this as well.

The menu has a good selection of standard Wisconsin pub food with burgers and entrees, but the fried chicken options stand out. We started off with the cheese curds (delicious, light, and buttery) and moved on to the wing pairing. We sampled the following sauces: Honey Wasabi, Maple Bacon, Buffalo Dry Rub, White BBQ, Nashville Hot, and Carolina Gold. The winner of the evening for our group was the Nashville hot, closely followed by the Buffalo Dry Rub. The Nashville hot was definitely spicy but did have almost a nice bit of sweet honey taste underneath the top layer. The Buffalo Dry Rub was phenomenal as well. The Honey Wasabi was probably third, and while the other sauces were good, I felt the top three were a bit above. The White BBQ was distinctly vinegar-esqe, the Maple Bacon was good but a little odd with the bits of bacon on it (just a little confusing for the taste buds on a chicken wing), and the Carolina Gold was mustard-y (as it is supposed to be, but just not wild about it).

The location has a great tap list with a lot of unique local and regional beers to choose from. Check out their happy hour between 4:30 and 6:30PM, which included $1 off tap pours, $5 cheese curds, and some other solid-looking drink specials. Wednesdays also featured trivia and 50 cent wings, and after trying so many wings, this would be worth a Wednesday visit to have more! We didn’t try the Peri Peri Rub or Chili Lime also mentioned on the menu, and I would like to return to have those flavors as well as check out some of the other delicious-looking options.

Thanks to Crafty Cow/Hot Head for...

First of all, I want to start off by saying that the place is very cool, cozy & welcoming. We were seated (just 2 of us) on the "upper" level. It was not crowded at all and our server was very friendly and attentive. We ordered the corn ribs as an appetizer and they were absolutely delicious!! My dinner date ordered a burger and it was very tasty. I ordered the southern fried chicken on a southern biscuit drizzled with honey butter (yum.....right?!). Well, the sandwich came (it was pretty tall), I put my fingers on it to hold in place while I cut it in half and it immediately felt cold to the touch and I got cold, raw dough under my finger nails! I called the waiter over and showed/told him. He immediately took my plate away, but was met by the manager. I could see him explaining the situation to the manager. The manager took my plate from him and brought it right back to me and proceeded to tell me that that's the way they make their biscuits because they put the honey butter on the inside. I agreed with him that I understood how the biscuits were made, but also disagreed that that's how they're "supposed to be". He even went as far as to tell me that if I had the dish re-made, the biscuit would come out the same exact way. I asked for it to be re-made anyway as I KNOW that the biscuit should not come out cold, raw, & doughy. Once our waiter brought the new dish, the biscuit was hot, flakey & delicious. The waiter even came back to our table and said directly to us that he knew it wasn't made correctly and didn't know why the manager was trying to cover. He got a good tip - it wasn't his fault & he was honest! Although, the food was good, I'm not sure that we'll return only because of the attitude of the manager and trying to standby a dish that was clearly unacceptable to consume. That was a...