Betty's Cafe

I was determined to eat at non-franchise restaurants when visiting this area, and Betty's definitely fit the bill.  Signs in the window of this unpretentious little place bragged about their home cooked roast beef and mashed potatoes.  I wasn't totally convinced but wanted to give it a try.

My husband chose the "famous" hot roast beef sandwich with mashed potatoes and I chose a hamburger.  My burger was yummy and not shaped by a machine spitting out patties.  It looked similar to the ones I make by hand.  But I must admit I was coveting the hot roast beef sandwich set down in front of my hubby with two huge scoops of mashed potatoes mounded on top, covered in a generously with gravy.  It looked and smelled delicious and my husband confirmed it was every bit as good as it looked, and was kind enough to let me sample it and confirm it for myself.

It would be easy to overlook this little gem.  It's not fancy, but it's clean.  Many restaurants claim their food is home cooked, but the food served here actually tastes like it.  We went back again a couple days later so I could get my own hot roast beef sandwich.

Not only is the food great, the prices are very reasonable.  With drinks, our bill for the two of us was about $14.  I can't imagine anyone leaving hungry or disappointed.

Betty's Cafe didn't strike me as very friendly and it certainly doesn't look like much from the outside.  Despite this it is a definite 4-star in my opinion on the strength of the food alone.  I'd gone up to Cameron for a tower job in town and had met with a local rep along with a site acq guy and the overall PM.  I'd left Madison very early that morning so as to be in Rice Lake by 9:00 AM and I'd skipped breakfast.  There was a delay at Rice Lake so by the time we made it to Cameron we were about an hour and a half behind - the schedule called for us to done by 10:30 and me on my merry way to Washburn County.  After wrapping up on site the local guy took off and lunch was suggested by the PM.  The responsible play on my part would have been to decline and push for points north - after all I was supposed to meet up with another crew an hour and a half away in 15 minutes.  Instead I jumped in my car and followed the convoy down into the heart of Cameron.  We didn't see much along CR SS so we swung around and went west along Main Street.  Again pickings were slim, and we all swung around and decided on Betty's despite the fact it didn't exactly catch the eye on the first pass.  It turned out to be a good choice, albeit one necessitated by the lack of other options.

After parking in a side lot haphazardly filled with cars we made our way to one of the several screen doors on the side of the building.  We three travelers walked into a bustling cafe filled almost to the brink with locals.  We quickly caught the eye of the waitress who quickly and efficiently led us to one of the few unoccupied tables, not bothering with time-wasting activities such as smiling or pleasantries.  We got a round of coffee and menus and heard the daily specials.  The site acq guy and the PM both went with burgers but I was taken with the special - chicken and biscuits with mashed potatoes.  That sounded like home-cooked comfort food to me and I was exceedingly hungry as well.  After putting in our ordered I noticed that the local rep was sitting at the counter with his lunch, so I gave him a tap on the shoulder and invited him to join our table.  We engaged in the splendorous conversation of telecommunications - fiber optics, frequencies and the crazy-ass policies that were the new protocol this month - as we waited for our meals to arrive.  

The wait turned out to be minimal, about the time it took for me to drain my first cup of coffee and start on the glass of water.  The other two guys had pretty standard-looking burgers with crinkle-cut fries, but the star of the show that day was the chicken and biscuits that I had ordered.  It came out on a plate that was more of a serving platter than anything else and consisted of two significant biscuits and a large pile of mashed potatoes covered in chicken and gravy.  That meal could have fed a small family.  The biscuits were light and flaky and came apart quite easily, and the mashed potatoes were obviously home-made with plenty of butter and the occasional lump to let you know it certainly didn't come from a box.  The chicken was pulled from the bone in decent-sized pieces, cooked in with the thick gravy.  It tasted amazing, as good as you'd expect from grandma.  Despite the volume I was determined to finish, and much to my tablemates' amazement I succeeded in this feat.  

In the immediate aftermath I was congratulated by all around the table for taking down such a large lunch.  I'm not normally a big eater but in such circumstances it is worth the impending discomfort in lieu of leaving something so tasty on the table.  The waitress returned with our checks, splitting them into three separate bills for three separate expense accounts.  My final damage amounted to a little over $7 - that includes the coffee too!  The lunch special, basically a full pound of food, clocked in under six bucks.  I've been to places in Madison where not even the appetizers are that cheap.  I ended up leaving a $3 tip because how could I not?  I still felt like I was getting a steal and I just couldn't rationalize a single-digit expenditure.  I was well behind schedule at this point but I had no regrets.  After a quick trip to the minuscule and oddly placed restroom I made my way out to the car and went north, hoping that I could stave off the effects of a food-coma until I reached my next site, where the prospect of laying out a new site in the woods promised to burn off at least a portion of the calories accrued that day.

As a post-script to this story I ended up meeting someone from Cameron a month or two later, a friend of a friend that had come out to a show.  Once he told me where he was from I started gushing about this giant delicious lunch, to which he confirmed the home-made pedigree of Betty's Cafe.  He told me that the place was run by members of same family and has been the favorite of just about everyone in town.  I can't say I fault them for that.