About the Crafty Cow
Craft Beer. Craft Burgers.
The Crafty Cow is a family owned and operated restaurant, located in Oconomowoc and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Devin Eichler, founder and co-owner, can be found in the kitchen of the Oconomowoc restaurant or out on the floor talking to customers. It truly is a family run business, involving both of his parents, his sister, and his wife.
*In May 2019, the Crafty Cow in downtown Oconomowoc invited Lake Country Family Fun to try out their newly launched menu. Lake Country Family Fun owner, Erin, along with three other food enthusiasts, including local blogger Lydia Schleicher – a self-proclaimed Cow lover, enjoyed a delicious lunch. Read more from Lydia below.
Atmosphere
My husband and I were there at the opening of the Cow (as we affectionately call it) back in 2014 and over the years we’ve celebrated soccer victories and wedding anniversaries there. On any given Friday night you can probably find us there decompressing from the week.
The front of the restaurant has long family-style picnic tables and high tops that complement
the bar seating and the plethora of televisions that show all of the games.
The back of the restaurant is quieter and some people think of it as the family area. There are no televisions and the tables are lower, so families with young children do tend to prefer to sit back there. Also, families with younger kids tend to go earlier in the evening, so while the front of the bar might be rockin’ later on, the back is where the action is at before the sun goes down.
That doesn’t mean you won’t find kids anywhere and everywhere at the Crafty Cow, though, even sitting at the bar sharing a giant pretzel with mom.
We love everything about The Cow, the food, the drinks, and the super awesome staff. Like I
said, we can be found there almost every Friday night so when Lake Country Family Fun asked
me to write this, it was an obvious yes!
Crafty Cow Food
Crafty Cow is known for it’s “Juicy Lucy” style burgers, something that Devin picked up while in college in Minneapolis. The cheese is cooked inside the meat, which does something magical to
the “antibiotic and hormone free, USDA approved, vegetarian fed, humanely raised, Midwest
born and bred beef”(quoted from their website).
And although the burger is the staple of the menu, they just introduced new items last week which bring salads into the spotlight and give more vegan and gluten free options to those who need and want them (Vietnamese Brussel Sprouts are TO DIE FOR!!!!).
{Featured image above is the new Chimichurri shrimp salad.}
There is a special menu for the kids that includes grilled cheese, hamburger sliders, and chicken tenders but my kids have always loved experimenting off of the “big” menu. It’s nice to have go-to items that you know your kids will eat, but seriously, how fun is it to introduce your kids to things like poutine?
No matter what you are in the mood for, you will find something you love and it’s very possible
you will end up taking more than one to-go box home. The portions, from the Nachos and
wings to the burgers to the salads are very generous.
Crafty Drinks
The first part of the Crafty Cow’s tagline is “Craft Beer” and if you are a regular at The Cow, you know that they rotate through their kegs the way a Kardashian rotates through lip gloss. The beauty and the sadness of the Cow’s style of serving beer is that you can fall in love with what’s on tap one week and the next week, it will be gone. I love how many beers and breweries I’ve come to know over the years we’ve been hanging out there. An exciting step they are making is
to focus on 11-12 breweries in and around Wisconsin and rotating those beers, which will give them a more consistent relationship with them, more access to the rarer beers from those breweries, and more opportunities for events with them. This still leaves plenty of room in the taps for whatever fun beers they want to introduce and share, so no worries about losing
variety by limiting breweries.
Another fun development over the last couple of years are the “craft” mixed drinks that the bartender makes himself. This menu changes with the season and the fresh fruit and herbs make the drinks taste like summer themselves.
They also serve wine, beer cocktails, and have quite a collection of bourbons, scotches, and whiskeys. The Crafty Cow may be a place for craft beer, but it’s got a drink for you whether you’re a beer drinker or not.
So What I'm Saying...
The 7 day a week happy hour from 3-6 pm makes it easy and affordable to catch up with friends. When you’re there with your family you can sit up front or in the back and you are guaranteed a good time. Their super fun themes, including Bottomless Mimosas all day Mondays, Trivia Tuesday, Sliders on Wednesday, and Taco Thursday make the Cow a great place for friends, for families, for date night, for everyone. The food and drinks plus the super awesome staff will make this one of your family’s go-to places for food and fun.
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