Road trip time! A 30-min drive north from downtown Madison will take you to the Dorf Haus and Roxbury Tavern in the Town of Roxbury, just off U.S. Highway 12.

Once housing a general store, the Roxbury Tavern serves breakfast on Sundays, lunch Fri-Sat and dinner Tue-Sat with different specials each day. For example, Tuesday is Mexican night and Wednesday is Italian.

Besides the main bar area, from which you can peer into the vast storage area in the back (not a good thing), there’s a dining area in an adjacent room. It was surprisingly dead on a Friday night (just two other groups, both of which had the fish fry), though I presume most people were down the block at the Dorf Haus.

The Roxbury Tavern has live music on occasion, accepts cash and checks and is closed for some reason on Mondays (what do the town’s 1,700 residents do that day?). To me, it’s just your run-of-the-mill townie bar.

Meanwhile, the Dorf Haus is a massive building–so much so that it seems out of place–and houses a dining room, banquet room, bar and game room. If you don’t get there by 5:30 p.m. for its Friday fish fry, expect a long wait.

I really like the fried cod, mainly because it reminded me of KFC’s original recipe. While it does not say all-you-can-eat on the menu, the waitress did let us know after we finished that we could have more (she said this to every table). The sides (fries or German potato salad, salad bar or cole slaw and fritters) were served family style.

While I did have my requisite Brandy Old Fashioned (sweet), I did feel obligated to order a beer while at this German restaurant, so I ordered a delicious stout that the waitress recommended.

I really want to come back for the Bavarian smorgasbord, which is served on the first Monday of every month year-round as well as the third Monday from June-October. I remember loving the fall-off-the-bone ribs in a previous visit many years ago.

Hopefully, I won’t wait as long between visits again.