Caleb Westphal hasn’t missed a Friday fish fry since 2013. Follow his never-ending adventures HERE. This week: fish fry #665, at Tail Spin Bar & Grill in Muskego, Wisconsin.
I had just finished riding Pegasus, one of the tamer roller coasters at Mt. Olympus in Wisconsin Dells. As I tried to exit, I found out the ride wasn’t quite done with me, the lap bar refusing to let me go. I pushed down and pulled up. Everyone else got out of the ride. I didn’t. I called over a worker. They couldn’t get me out either.
Someone got on a walkie talkie and put in a call for backup. I imagined the jaws of life coming to pry me out. There was fear, fear that the roller coaster would start going down the track with only me on it before I had been freed. Then there were those eyes of the next riders in line, all seeming to be set upon me, judging me, getting impatient at the bozo seated in the back car of the coaster who was unable to leave his seat and holding up the show. But mainly I just felt the hilarity of my predicament. Backup did arrive, and I was free almost immediately. What felt like a 10-minute ordeal was probably less than five.
There once was a roller coaster in Muskego larger than Pegasus. While Pegasus is 60 feet tall with a 45-foot drop, Tail Spin was 75 feet tall with a drop of a similar distance. It had a double out-and-back layout and three camelback hills. Opened in May 1955, it was the flagship ride at Muskego Beach Amusement Park, located on the southeast shore of Little Muskego Lake, which became DandiLion Park in 1968. Tail Spin shut down in 1975, and DandiLion Park closed in 1978, with the site now being the location of Bay Breeze Condominiums.
A few months ago I took one of my stepsons fishing in Idle Isle Park, a park on the north side of Little Muskego Lake. As we were leaving and driving on Martin Drive, a building caught my eye, first because it looked like an unassuming rural tavern, but then because of the sign on it that said “Fish Fry Friday!” I wondered how I had never heard of Tail Spin Bar & Grill (s64w18295 Martin Dr.; 414-377-9491), nor been there, being that it is so close to Milwaukee. I didn’t know it at the time, but it is named after the roller coaster that once stood on the far side of the lake. It even has the same logo as the coaster. I drove just 0.3 miles farther and was perplexed when I came to a similarly named restaurant: Tail Spin Tavern. (This building previously was home to New Berlin’s Rainbow Restaurant, where I got a Friday fish fry in November 2019.) There are even more Tail Spin locations beyond this one that I didn’t know about.
I bookmarked the “Fish Fry Friday!” sign in my mind and planned to get back to it shortly after my paternity break. I made it there this past Friday. Over the years, the building has housed places like Sheerer’s Tavern, The Office, the Brick House, Chewy’s Place, and the Office Bar & Grill. Jennifer Halverson and her husband John opened Tail Spin Bar & Grill in it in December 2019.
About a third of the barstools were taken, while the few tables were all but empty. The bartender’s son sat at the bar drinking what appeared to be a kiddie cocktail. Some patrons made jokes about putting him to work. Somewhat divey, with working class vibes and outside-the-city-limits energy, Tail Spin was easy for me to acclimate to. I felt right at home as I got a menu from the bartender, ordered an NA beer, and took a seat at a slightly lopsided table.
Tail Spin’s Friday offerings are beer battered or grilled cod ($19), beer battered or grilled walleye ($20), and panko breaded, spicy breaded, or grilled jumbo shrimp ($21). Each comes with bread, coleslaw, and fries or tots. I contemplated the cod, but after a little break from the column decided on the walleye, beer battered that is, and brought fries along for the ride.
While waiting, I looked at the pictures of DandiLion Park and the Tail Spin roller coaster on the wall. Someone called the bar asking what kind of fish they had. The bartender filled them in and told them they could get their fish fry in about 10 minutes. Someone else called in a fish fry order for pickup. A few fish frys were brought out from the kitchen. Sure enough, in about 10 minutes I also had mine.
The bread and slaw were set slightly left of the usual fish fry dial. Instead of rye, I was given what appeared to be a few pieces of toasted and cut ciabatta bread. The coleslaw was chilled like it had been sitting in the fridge for a long while. It was flecked not with pepper, but with a speckling of a green herb that cloaked a mysterious layer over an otherwise commonplace slaw. The fries were light and straight cut, and abundant yet not overbearing.
With my first look at the walleye I thought, It’s the return of the Wisconsin-shaped fish, with its little thumb. Maybe that’s mental gymnastics, but that’s where my mind went. It was such a big piece that if it looked like part of the contiguous United States, it was both Wisconsin and Illinois. It was just one piece of walleye, but the sheer size of it was impressive, with it reaching almost from one end of the long side of the plate to the other. The walleye was also thick and wide.
While it was called beer battered walleye, there wasn’t much of a beer flavor, although the batter was well seasoned, and it was more like a breading than a batter, being crisp and on the verge of crunchy. Overall it was an effective coating, and beneath it was a robustly flavored walleye. I’ve had better walleye—walleye that was meatier, fresher, and cleaner—and I’ve probably had walleye that was more flavorful, but despite that, this had a robust wildness, and it enhanced the effectiveness of the batter. The thick tartar tamed the wild walleye and bold batter. It was tangy and sweet, yet only to a degree, being more subdued, an ideal counterpoint.
While the fish fry at Tail Spin Bar & Grill isn’t the kind that makes me want to tell you to drop everything, not pass go, not collect $200, and go directly to the bar, it is the kind of place that I’d go back to for another look, if not for the walleye again, then for the cod. The walleye and tartar were fantastic, the sides were either intriguing or satisfactory, and it was a reasonably priced fish fry, too.
Driving east on Puetz Road afterwards, on my way to Oak Creek to make a stop before heading home, I saw something in the distance. At first I thought I was hallucinating from sleep deprivation on account of having two kids under two, or maybe my head was spinning, as if Pegasus had had failed to let me go and had instead whipped me around the track for hours, because another Tail Spin sign seemed to be appearing in the distance.
Sure enough, it was another Tail Spin restaurant, the third I’d driven past that night. It was Tail Spin Pub & Pizza, which opened in March. I later learned there also is a Tail Spin Cafe, as well as a Tail Spin slated to open in Saukville this week. “Remembering the past, embracing the future” is a phrase displayed on the outside of Tail Spin Bar & Grill, and having five restaurants named Tail Spin despite the Tail Spin roller coaster being long gone definitely lives up to this motto. It’s a motto applicable to other things too, like the concept of eating a fish fry every Friday. I remember all the fish frys I’ve had before, and embrace the ones to come. Buy the ticket, take the ride, and enjoy every fish fry.
Takeaways: Named after a nearby roller coaster that stopped running in the 1970s; Tail Spin Bar & Grill in Muskego should not be confused with Tail Spin Tavern just 0.3 miles away in New Berlin; toasted and cut ciabatta bread; cold slaw with a speckling of a green herb; light, straight-cut fries; intimidating fillet of wild walleye with robust batter; thick tartar that tames but brings its own tangy sweetness.
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