That first summer the Jenkinses took over the Wild River Cafe you could almost set your watch by the farmer who stopped by on hot, dusty days for two Diet Pepsis. “He’d take the cans and lay down a dollar bill,” says John Jenkins. “We charge 75 cents a can here for soda, but he’d just say, “It costs 50 cents in the machines next door so that’s what I’m gonna pay.”‘
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The thing is, Jenkins and his wife, Cindi, who are known on a local radio program as the “laid-back gourmets,” don’t do the stuff you find at the typical rural Wisconsin restaurant. There are no Friday-night fish fries, nothing barbecued or smothered in gravy. Both John and Cindi have cooked on assembly lines, and in their own restaurant they wanted to be, well, creative. The half dozen or so dinner choices might include blackened salmon in a peppery raspberry sauce, or extra garlicky shrimp scampi, topped with a generously herbed fresh tomato sauce.
“I have people walking in here who ask, “Can’t you make something plain?”‘ says John. “I tell them I can make boeuf bourguignon. They say they don’t want that, so I ask, “How about beef chunks over noodles?’ They say that’s fine. So I give them boeuf bourguignon.”
“I went to talk to the principal,” he recalls. “I had hair down to my shoulder blades and was wearing bandannas and earrings. A few minutes into the conversation, I realized I was the problem.”
The Wild River Cafe is open Wednesday through Sunday for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Dinner entrees range from about $11.95 to $15.95 and include garlic bread, salad or soup, and fresh vegetables. There is a limited selection of domestic wines, including Prairie Fume from the Wollersheim Winery near Sauk City.
