A man in a dark suit greets us, asking us for the secret password. Come on - what password?
And where is the restaurant? Where's the food? What is this tiny cubicle with the large bookcase on one side? Where did everybody go?
Part of the fun in traveling is discovering unusual eating spots. But this is certainly one of the most unique I have ever visited. Without telling too much or giving away too many secrets, let me whisper a few tidbits about the Safe House.
To begin with, the entrance is in an alley and there's not a single sign announcing that you have arrived at the Safe House. Instead, the placard on the door says this is International Exports Ltd. Ah, ha! A dead giveaway.
That is the company for which the legendary James Bond works. That should be a clue. Read the name carefully, looking for highlighted letters, also for a tip that this is the place.
Since I don't know the secret password, I am given a difficult mission to accomplish. And somehow made it inside.
"Believe me," owner David Baldwin confided, "no one has ever been turned away because they didn't know the secret password. You just have to do what we tell you."
Started almost 40 years ago, the Safe House is one of Milwaukee's worst-kept secrets. It's popular with hometowners and out-of-towners. It's the kind of place where you can be confused and amused, where you are invited to live and let laugh.
If it's your first time here - or your 007th time - place your order from a varied menu and walk around to see all the spy delights. The food is quite good with something for everyone from burgers to barbecue to steak.
Most popular drink, of course, is a martini - shaken not stirred.
It's worth ordering a Bond drink just to see it arrive. The signature martini is mixed in a shaker, stuck in a weird-looking contraption of 800 feet of pneumatic tubing that sends it rattling along the ceiling and down to the bar. Reminds me of those gadgets at bank drive-up windows where you put your money in a tube, press a button and it is sucked away to some unseen bank teller.
Walls are packed with spy memorabilia and celebrity photos. Novelty machines offer a variety of fortune telling and video games. A revolving booth spins a table load of surprised people from one location to another. A popular phone is a quick exit for a quarter. You put in a quarter, get the magic word, dial it on the phone and you can go out through a secret tunnel
Guys don't know what they are missing in the ladies room - or maybe they do. On the wall is a giant framed poster of Burt Reynolds (from many decades ago) wearing nothing but a smile and a red heart over a strategic part. Inquisitive women who want to see what is under the heart are greeted with an alarm echoing throughout the restaurant and a red light flashing over the bar. Patrons then watch to see the embarrassed "toucher" exiting the women's room.
Also in the restroom is a tiny dark room with a two-way mirror that lets you secretly peer into the bar to see what your husband or boyfriend is up to while you're gone.
Other spy-tech gadgets include bullet-proof windows, the world's largest mechanical wall puzzle, a piece of the Berlin Wall, a revolving booth, Austin Powers guitar, magician's nook, gambling tables and bar stools that shrink with unsuspecting patrons seated in them. Before you know it, your chin is on the bar and your elbows are up in the air.
“Role playing is fascinating and that’s what people do at the Safe House,” says Shauna Baldwin. “It gives you a chance to escape from reality for a while.”
It's all in good fun. So turn up the collar of your trench coat, don your dark glasses and slip into the Safe House, where they have a license to thrill.
More information: Call the Safe House at (414) 271-2007, wwwsafe-house.com or Visit Milwaukee at (800) 231-0903, www.visitmilwaukee.org
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