« Rockhound | Main | Rosie's Coffee Bar and Bakery »

Rookies

RookiesIn a word: Sports with everything.

The specs: #01037   
10267 US Hwy 14, Mazomanie 53560
Details at Yelp, official web site, Facebook, Twitter

Latest Rookies news and reviews

JM ate the pulled pork with a lemonade.
Nichole ate the cheeseburger with chips.
The bill was $25, or $12ish/person, plus tip.
JM gave Rookies a B+; Nichole gave Rookies a B- (see our grading rubric).

Rookies is a cross-promotional partner with the Shoe Box, as evidenced by the signage at both things.  It lies just past Mazo, in what can only be described as Sconnie country. You probably know the sort of place: Jell-O shots after Badger wins, and an unironic PBR challenge. 

Due to its connection with the Shoe Box, the sports memorabilia and paraphernalia matches that at Pooley's and the downtown Nitty for breadth and depth. Every inch of space is covered with signed photographs, kitsch, or televisions. (If there are fewer than 30 TVs in Rookies, we'd be surprised). We happened to go during that needlessly close Badger game against Rutgers, and got to see the whole OT from our table.  Of course, the place was packed to the gills. We had to wait, which was fine since there was free serve-yourself popcorn and a squeeze bottle of melted serve-yourself butter. Delicious.

Once we did get a seat, we got to peruse a solid menu of choices: burgers and sandwiches, natch, but also: pizza, salads, Swedish meatballs on special, ribs, pasta.  We settled for a burger for her and a pulled pork for him, especially since it came with a variety of sauces.  The pork was good, though there was probably enough for two sandwiches and the middle had some cool spots (not dangerous, just a little unwell). As for the sauce array, there were two bottles of various BBQ-adjacent Mustard Girl (a fine mustard), a bottle of the runniest vinegariest sauce, and a nice French's implementation of Carolina BBQ - the latter two of which JM used freely.

Pulled pork

Nichole's burger was about the epitome of doneness in rural burgers.  The brioche bun was soft, the patty was a delightful medium to medium rare and the cheese was in just the right vein.  The chips and fries that came with these were nothing too spectacular, as our notes barely mention them at all.

Burger

Sportsball completed, the crowd emptied out within 15 minutes, and the place was less than half full by the time we left. We'd stop by again for a burger or popcorn if it were on our way.

Comments

Feed You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.

The comments to this entry are closed.

NEWS

Listen to The Corner Table podcast "Remembering Restaurants," aired December 24, 2020, where Chris and Lindsay talk with us "about the menus and memories left behind when restaurants go away."

Madison Food coverInfo about our book Madison Food: A History of Capital Cuisine is here, or read it for free thanks to the library - print & ebook.


SEARCH EATING IN MADISON A TO Z

BROWSE EATING IN MADISON A TO Z
OUR FAVORITES


About Follow madisonatoz on Twitter Contact
Blogroll Ad 
Free Blog
Read our book and food tour
Dish du jour Creative Commons License subscribe to RSS Subscribe
Memo to restaurants Bloggers' Rights at EFF Quizzes
Reflections BlogWithIntegrity.com Tip jar
Banner image by Kayla Morelli, Red Wheelbarrow Design