Wilmot Stage Stop — Restaurant in Salem Lakes

Amazing meal!

We had never been to the Stage Stop. While visiting family in the area, we took them out for dinner on a Sunday evening. We had reservations for 4 people at 5:30 pm.

The parking lot was pretty full but there was no line of people waiting for a table. We saw the host and checked in and were seated right away. There’s a bar area as you enter the main door (at the back porch). Then there’s at least 2 dining rooms, maybe more. We were seated in the one nearest the bar. We had a nice 4-top table that we pulled away from the wall a few inches as my wife and I are fuller-figured and that few inches more room is just right for us.

Our server came over quickly and introduced herself. Her name was Haven. She was quite pleasant and very knowledgeable about the food and drinks as well as the restaurant operation. We had all studied the online menu before we got here and knew what we wanted, so we ordered our drinks and meals all at once.

We had: Waters Brandy Old Fashioned x 3 Pino Grigio Wine (Santa Margherita)

Filet and Lobster Tail x 3 (one with mushrooms) Grilled Shrimp and Lobster Tail Salad x 4 Baked Potato x 4

Grasshopper x 2 (for dessert)

The drinks were great if you like a Wisconsin Old Fashioned (made with brandy vs bourbon).

The salads were simple and served with a small bowl each of Roquefort, French and Thousand Island. All homemade and all very tasty. A basket of 4 dinner rolls came out with the salad as well.

We LOVED the food. The steaks are chargrilled and were cooked (medium rare) perfectly. We topped each with garlic butter.

The lobster tails were very good. Smallish but priced accordingly. They were served with drawn butter, kept warm over a candle-based warmer. The shrimp were excellent too. Tasty and not overcooked. My wife and I shared her shrimp and my steak and each had a lobster tail. Worked out perfectly.

The baked potatoes were on the smaller side but quite adequate. A huge (about 1/2 pound) piece of butter and a small bowl of sour cream was brought out for our potatoes. Way too much butter and not enough sour cream. Haven brought us a second small bowl each of sour cream and it was just perfect.

For dessert, my wife and I shared a classic Grasshopper drink and my wife’s cousin and his daughter shared one as well. They were very tasty.

We can recommend anyone to eat here at the Wilmot Stage Stop and I look forward to eating here on our next stop...

The first clue that things weren't going to go well for us, was that when we arrived, we read the sign on the door that said, "We do not accept credit cards". When our waitress came, we asked if they accept DEBIT cards. She said curtly, "We do not accept ANY credit cards!" When my husband questioned again, (I guess he should have known better), the difference between a credit card and a debit card, she said, "We do NOT accept ANY credit cards!"

There were very few things on the menu, but I figured it was better for them to specialize in a few things than to try to be "all things to all people." My next disappointment came when I had the home made Roquefort dressing on my salad. It had also no detectable flavor to it. I think it was more mayonnaise than anything else.

I had never eaten lamb before, so I figured that this would be a good time to try it. I ordered 2 lamb chops, cooked medium. The meat was done much closer to rare than medium, and it was so tough I had difficulty cutting it with my serrated knife. I found out that it wasn't just a dull knife because I could hardly chew it either. I had to remove (as politely as possible), many pieces of gristle from my mouth that I was simply unable to chew enough to swallow.

My husband had the Ribeye. He ordered it medium-well and it was cooked to perfection, but nearly half of it was riddled with gristle that he had to separate. The half without all the gristle tasted all right.

The baked potato was delicious, but if you desire to cut back on your cholesterol intake, watch out! The cook took a full pound of butter and cut large square wedges off the end of it for each potato. It was an extremely generous amount of butter and very good. Good FOR you? . . . Maybe not.

One thing I need to add is that it would have been much easier to separate the gristle from the meat if we could have seen what we were consuming. It was not a romantic setting at all, so I couldn't understand the point of keeping us...

IF YOU LIKE A FRIGID DINING ROOM, SHORT SHOT OVERPRICED DRINKS, RUSHED SERVICE & OVERDONE STEAKS THEN THIS IS THE PLACE FOR YOU!

On a recent visit we experienced all of the above. The dining room was freezing – not comfortable. It wasn’t just us – tables around us were also complaining to each other how cold it was. We don’t go out for fine dining expecting cold air to be blowing up our rear ends – (I’m saying that kind of nicer). Our Old Fashioneds were served in a rocks glass, not the conventional tumbler one would come to expect – especially in Wisconsin. The small rocks glasses were filled to the extreme top, thus when served were spilling and soaking up the bar napkin and getting our table sticky and wet. Also, it was served without a bar straw making it impossible to sip it down before lifting it to drink, thus causing it to further spill on the table and drip onto our clothes in order to consume it. This is just what we wanted on a Saturday night out. The drink itself was some bitters, cherries, an orange slice and a hint of liquor – if that - extremely short shot, undersized and overpriced - I say overpriced based on the lack of liquor. An Old Fashioned should be made with 1-1/2 ounces of liquor. I would be being generous saying it contained even a ½ ounce of liquor. Our service was rushed. We were not even half way through our salads when our entrees were being served, then without asking started pulling the half eaten salad bowls – absolutely tacky. Rushed as it was, they still managed to over-cook our steaks even though the menu touts to “order your steaks accordingly”. Tables should be checked on within one to two minutes after entrees are served. That didn’t happen, eventually our server returned to the table, never asked how everything was, she just wanted to push more drinks which we promptly declined as we didn’t need a second table flooding. Our service was colder than the dining room which was...