What do Mars and Wisconsin have in common? Well, the planet Mars does have a landscape that gives it an appearance resembling Swiss cheese – and there’s certainly a lot of cheese in Wisconsin.
But Mars isn’t just a planet neighbor in our galaxy. It also shares its name with two destinations in Southeast Wisconsin that any Midwest traveler should make time to enjoy – Mars Cheese Castle and Mars Resort.
From my first visit to the state of Wisconsin as a teenager, there was one constant on every trip – a visit to Mars Cheese Castle in Kenosha. Sitting right along I-94 and just over the Wisconsin border, it was often the last stop when heading out of town where we’d get the obligatory foodie souvenir of the land of cheese – a bag of curds for snacking on. It’s a roadside landmark that lets you know you’ve entered this leading dairy state.
Since my early visits there, Mars Cheese Castle has moved into a newer building and one that truly looks like a castle. The business originally opened in 1947 and moved to a new space about a decade later after a fire and then in 2011 an interstate-widening project took place that meant that the Mars Cheese Castle would have to come down. The new building was bigger and better – more than twice the size of the old one. That meant more room for cheese and an opportunity to expand what they carry. It’s now also full of Wisconsin-made specialty food items and has a bakery, a tavern, a cafe, a wine hall, a candy area, some rows of Wisconsin-themed clothing, gourmet sodas – and of course a big room of nothing but cheese. There’s just about every kind of cheese your lactose-loving heart could imagine – well into the hundreds.
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Some of my favorite items are the King of Clubs Cheedar Cheese Spread and, of course, the cheese curds, which you’ll find in a large variety of flavors. I’ve had some garlic ones and some bacon-infused ones that I really liked. In pre-COVID days, you’d often find a big tub of it out on the bar in the tavern on a platter with a couple sleeves of crackers.
The tavern has a few local craft beers on tap along with some standard domestics and one fun feature about it is that if you ask, they’ll put it in a plastic cup for you so that you can sip on it while you shop. Scanning the aisles and filling the cart with such lovely culinary treasures as Kringles, Sprecher Root Beer, Palo Popcorn, cheese curds, beef sticks, locally made jellies and mustards and other condiments while sipping on a brew is something so Wisconsin and such a cool way to break up a road trip. It’s also a great meal stop where you must place an order for bratwurst and fried cheese curds. For more information, visit marscheese.com.
On my most recent trip to Wisconsin, I discovered there’s another amazing foodie place also called Mars. Mars Resort is the quintessential Wisconsin supper club. As we spent time in Lake Geneva and chatted with locals, several told us that we had to pay a visit to Mars. I was thinking that they were talking about the Mars Cheese Castle, but I quickly learned that they were talking about a different place when they described the ambiance and menu.
Apparently, Mars Resort is the supper club to go to in Lake Geneva. Everyone we chatted with recommended it. It’s one of those in-the-woods, out-of-the-way places that feels so homey and nostalgic. It dates back to the 1920s and is located on the shores of Lake Como in the town of Lake Geneva. As we headed in to the front entrance, it instantly took me back to old school steakhouses full of dark wood with dim lighting, but we realized that although it’s a serious supper club up front, it’s all party in the back. Head out the back and down the stairs and you find patio seating overlooking the water with a boat dock, sandy beach and outdoor bar.
We got there on a Friday summer afternoon in what I thought was plenty of time to beat the dinner rush around 4 p.m. and we found that tables indoors were already spoken for for the next 45 minutes or more (reservations are not taken), but we were directed out the back where we could likely find seating. We initially thought it was an inconvenience, but I was so happy they relocated us outside where it was steamy and sunny and the steel drum player was just warming up. We sat in the sun and enjoyed some grilled shrimp while listening to live Jimmy Buffet covers and watching the the water roll into the sand. It really felt more like being on a tropical beach in the Caribbean than lakeside in the Midwest.
Many people have heard of Mars Cheese Castle and made it a roadside stop, but this Mars that you probably haven’t heard of is one you should know and stop at, too. For more information, visit mars-resort.com.
