Some of you who know me well, know I love Milwaukee.  Those of you who were at Salon Saloon a few months ago know I love restaurants in Milwaukee.  This week I’m going to be in Milwaukee, and I couldn’t be more excited. Milwaukee is kind of a weird place.  There’s this chain of restaurants called George Webb’s.  They’re notoriously bad, but open 24 hours a day.  The bulk of the menu is breakfast foods and hamburgers, although they do have a tasty ‘chicken-flavored noodle’ soup. (just to be clear, you read that right.)  But what sets George Webb’s apart from the other 24 hour restaurants in town is it’s low prices and bizarre traditions.  For example: -all George Webb restaurants have two clocks, mounted on the wall next to each other, set one minute apart. Why, you ask.  There’s two stories; From the George Webb’s website: “To get around a city ordinance that banned establishments from being open 24 hours a day, he announced that ‘George Webb Restaurants are open 23 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds, seven days a week and on Sundays!’” and another from OnMilwaukee.com: “The original restaurant was founded in 1948 and located Downtown at the corner of Ogden and Van Buren streets. Many George Webb customers would wait for a streetcar right outside the eatery, and would have an interest in knowing what time it was, so as to not miss the trolley. George Webb had several clocks on the wall for that very reason. The clocks showed different times, representing places across the world. As the story goes, the streetcar rattled so much when it rolled past the restaurant that most of the clocks eventually fell of the wall. You guessed it, two remained. George never replaced the fallen clocks, but decided to put two clocks in each new restaurant he opened.” Weird, right?  I’ve heard both stories over the years, and I’m inclined to believe the former. -Also, every year George Webb’s predicts that the Milwaukee Brewers will win 12 games in a row, and when this happens everyone gets a free hamburger.  I can remember this only happening twice in my 31 years, mostly because the Brewers were not the best baseball team for the majority of that time (except, of course in 1982, but I was too young to recall those years).  So when the chance for free burgers comes up, it’s big news in Brew Town.  The local media is all over it, people on the street are buzzing free eats, everyone is excited about the potential of hamburgers.  Usually, the Brewers lose; but when they don’t, the lines stretch around the block. As much as George Webb’s is not the first stop in a gastronome’s tour of the German Athens, it will always be a stop on any of my trips to Milwaukee.  And if you know where I’ll be drinking this week, you can spot me at the nearest Webb’s around 2:30 am, happily eating my double cheeseburger.

Some of you who know me well, know I love Milwaukee.  Those of you who were at Salon Saloon a few months ago know I love restaurants in Milwaukee.  This week I’m going to be in Milwaukee, and I couldn’t be more excited.

Milwaukee is kind of a weird place.  There’s this chain of restaurants called George Webb’s.  They’re notoriously bad, but open 24 hours a day.  The bulk of the menu is breakfast foods and hamburgers, although they do have a tasty ‘chicken-flavored noodle’ soup. (just to be clear, you read that right.)  But what sets George Webb’s apart from the other 24 hour restaurants in town is it’s low prices and bizarre traditions.  For example:

-all George Webb restaurants have two clocks, mounted on the wall next to each other, set one minute apart. Why, you ask.  There’s two stories; From the George Webb’s website:

“To get around a city ordinance that banned establishments from being open 24 hours a day, he announced that ‘George Webb Restaurants are open 23 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds, seven days a week and on Sundays!’”

and another from OnMilwaukee.com:

“The original restaurant was founded in 1948 and located Downtown at the corner of Ogden and Van Buren streets. Many George Webb customers would wait for a streetcar right outside the eatery, and would have an interest in knowing what time it was, so as to not miss the trolley. George Webb had several clocks on the wall for that very reason. The clocks showed different times, representing places across the world.

As the story goes, the streetcar rattled so much when it rolled past the restaurant that most of the clocks eventually fell of the wall. You guessed it, two remained. George never replaced the fallen clocks, but decided to put two clocks in each new restaurant he opened.”

Weird, right?  I’ve heard both stories over the years, and I’m inclined to believe the former.

-Also, every year George Webb’s predicts that the Milwaukee Brewers will win 12 games in a row, and when this happens everyone gets a free hamburger.  I can remember this only happening twice in my 31 years, mostly because the Brewers were not the best baseball team for the majority of that time (except, of course in 1982, but I was too young to recall those years).  So when the chance for free burgers comes up, it’s big news in Brew Town.  The local media is all over it, people on the street are buzzing free eats, everyone is excited about the potential of hamburgers.  Usually, the Brewers lose; but when they don’t, the lines stretch around the block.

As much as George Webb’s is not the first stop in a gastronome’s tour of the German Athens, it will always be a stop on any of my trips to Milwaukee.  And if you know where I’ll be drinking this week, you can spot me at the nearest Webb’s around 2:30 am, happily eating my double cheeseburger.