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Rocks for Fun Cafe, Tigerton, specializes in pasties and unusual rock art
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A cafe in Tigerton has rocks of personality. (c) Mary Bergin Photo
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Personality. Sometimes that’s what it takes for little restaurants and diners to stand out in Wisconsin. Consider this trio of family-owned businesses: Rocks for Fun Café in Tigerton, Clinton Kitchen Restaurant in Clinton and Solly’s Grille in Milwaukee. Each has quietly defined what they are, and it’s about more than meat and potatoes.
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All eyes – hundreds of eyes – seem to be on me while waiting for lunch in Tigerton, population 700 and in Shawano County. This place rocks – really rocks – and I challenge anyone to disagree.
The menu is abbreviated, yet the restaurant is a can’t-miss stop. For sale are Sweet Rocks (cake-like doughnut holes, coated in cinnamon sugar and served warm) and 10 types of tasty Rockin-Pocket pasties (meat/veggie turnovers whose ingredients include rutabaga and potatoes).
That’s not all there is to eat, but it’s relatively close. Local grocers and the American Legion post sell the pasties, but what they can’t duplicate is the atmosphere of the restaurant. “Mostly spontaneous humor” is how owner Don McClellan sums up the funky décor of his Rocks for Fun Café.
He has turned more than 300 pebbles, stones and rocks into google-eyed faces that look slightly crazed. They fill walls, counters and display cases. They are attached to salt-and-pepper sets. They bask outdoors, near the entrance, so there’s no way to miss the café’s location.
Many hang with a few words that drive home a message or pun: Marriage on the Rocks. Rock Around the Clock. Jailhouse Rock. Hard Rock. Rock Bass. Rock Fan.
“We joke that it wasn’t really a restaurant that Dad wanted, but the extra space that it gave him to display all of this,” says son Scott, 43, who handles business while Don delivers pasties.
Estimated value of the rock-solid collection is $2.69 million, Don has decided. He prices but refuses to sell these creations. Occasionally a customer tests this resolve – like the golf course owner who offered $1,200 for a little something – but Don hasn’t budged.
Come for a visit, and you’ll go home with a Lucky Rock – one of the 25,719 (and counting) that have been distributed, glued to business cards. Each pebble has an agreeable little face, and the cards are numbered.
The souvenir is one of a kind, and so is Don. Rock on.
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