Lynn’s Paradise Café (Louisville, Kentucky) is a quirky independent restaurant with a national reputation built on great food, wacky décor, and wild events.

A summertime rite-of-passage, roasting s’mores around the campfire has been a family tradition since marshmallows found their way onto grocery store shelves in the early 20th century. Road Trips for Families offers some suggestions for getting your marshmallow on, just in time for Nationional S’more Month.

Family dining options are plentiful in Rockford, Illinois. Family-owned, local favorites range from “hidden gems” to “reservations required”. With many restaurants conveniently located near the interstate corridor, this Feed Me review is an appetizer to get you started.

Even on family vacation, kids and their families can still enjoy the taste and health benefits of drinking milk and dining together while on the road. The National “got milk?®” Milk Mustache Mobile Tour is crossing the country from March to September, helping families make healthier choices and incorporate milk into their daily meals.

Without an address or any discernible clue* you are at the right location, The Safe House restaurant is one of Milwaukee’s top-secret spy finds. Located downtown near the Milwaukee river, the main entrance is down …

Without a road sign or legible business address for 3606 Corben Court in Madison, Wisconsin, it’s amazing Pat O’ Malley’s Jet Room has any customers at all. And yet, on a random Tuesday morning in …

After a recent trip (without kids) to New Orleans, I’ve decided that “family friendly dining” means something entirely different to people from the Midwest. In the South, it seems that families lay claim to certain restaurants. In some sort of rite-of-passage, people bring their children to a certain restaurant. The children grow up and come back with their kids. Repeat for a couple of generations, and you may even have your own table (equivalent in my mind to your own pew at church).

People in Wisconsin love fish. Fishing from piers, by boat, on the ice. With lakes Michigan and Superior forming two of its borders, you can hardly fault the fisherman. Every Friday night the Lakefront Palm Garden, smack in the middle of the Milwaukee’s very own Lakefront Brewery, welcomes throngs of fish-hungry families for some of the best fish fry Wisconsin has to offer.

Located near Miller Park west of downtown, Palermo’s Pizza opened the doors to their new location in 2007. First-generation Italian American’s the Palermo family embodies an over forty year story of immigration, hard work, expansion, revolution, and now your grocery isle.

About Miss Katie’s Diner in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, another food writer proclaimed, “Expect to find everything but the Fonz in this nostalgic greasy spoon.” I beg to differ. We found the Fonz, Marilyn, Elvis, and James …

Once upon a time I visited a restaurant somewhere in Chicago. At each table there was a mason jar full of jelly beans and a spoon in each jar. None of the plates matched and everyone drank from a different sized coffee cup. I’ve often thought of that restaurant, trying in vain to remember the name. Even today as we accidentally break plates from our matching wedding set, I quietly smile at the idea of replacing them one garage sale purchase at a time.

The cliché “we’re regulars” is a bit of an understatement for our family. Whenever someone comes to visit from out-of-town, Ellas is a mandatory stop on our makeshift Madison tour. A friend of ours introduced my husband and I to Ella’s before kids and we were hooked even then (now it’s just easier to point obnoxiously at all of the things flying and moving around the room without seeming like you’ve lost your mind).

Unless you are traveling during a lunar eclipse during a power outage, you can’t miss the Sun Prairie exit (Sun Prairie one way, Madison the other). You’ll find East Town Mall, Home Depot, Office Max, Best Buy, Petsmart, and more than a handful of franchise restaurant choices. Honestly, I try to avoid it—especially when the kids are in the van. But, for better or worse, we call Sun Prairie home.

Somewhat obscured by palm trees and a stucco façade whose color blends in with most buildings in Florida, exceptionally Vine Dining awaits for you at the Naples Tomato in Naples, Florida. Once you leave the strip-mall and enter the building, drying noodles and an olive bar are should be the first clue you are about to experience Italian cooking straight from the old country.

If you’re looking for the secret ingredient in the crabby patty recipe, Parrot Key Caribbean Grill in Ft. Myer’s, Florida won’t budge. They even have pirates on staff, ready to take the secret to the grave.

On the top of a hill, smack-dab in the middle of suburban sprawl sits the same restaurant on the same spot it claimed over fifty years ago. If you think, “this can’t possibly be right,” take faith and keep driving. You’ll see a sign for The Lookout Bar and Grill around the next bend.

Be honest now. Back in the day (before the mini additions to the family) you rated the best places to watch any game, no matter how big, by how sexy the servers were, how cold and cheap the beer was, and obviously, how plentiful the TVs were. Now you worry whether your kids are even invited, and dream of a place with cold beer, TVs, sexy servers and a gigantic game room or daycare.

Anyone new to Organ Piper Pizza in Brookfield, Wisconsin (Western Milwaukee Suburb) will notice two things right away…a full house and a smile on every face. It’s fun to watch them take it all in. The lights, the games, the crowd. And, then, the giant Wurlitzer pipe organ on the far side of the room. And by giant, I mean all-encompassing in a non-invasive way.

I lived in Wisconsin for five years. Until recently, I thought I knew cheese. Heck, my arteries are probably as hard as a cheese hat at a Packer’s game in late November. Then, one day last summer my neighbor Tracy, from St. Louis (as in Missouri!), introduced me to a little thing called provel cheese.