Monk burgers have style and taste all their own
10:11 PM 11/23/02
Susan Lampert Smith Wisconsin State Journal

WISCONSIN DELLS - The visual cacophony of Broadway in Wisconsin Dells can overwhelm: signs for T-shirts, fudge, the House of Horrors and gyroscope tickets scream for your attention.

Fortunately, you can find Monk's Bar with your eyes closed.

Open your nostrils and there it is, the aroma of onions frying in grease that pulls you through the door, the way it has for more than a half century. I'm here today on a scientific mission: to see whether the grill at the second Monk's in Baraboo has seasoned sufficiently to produce a passable Monk burger.

This is a point of considerable debate, since Monk burgers are as legendary around here as the man himself.

Monk Heineke was born Gustav Adolph Heineke but got his nickname as a little guy, said son Jim Heineke, a Madison financial planner.

"He was walking home from school with a book called 'The Little Monkey Who Would Not Kill,' and somebody took it away from him," Jim said. "He said 'Give me back my monk book!' and the name stuck."

That was probably the last time anyone ever bullied Monk, who grew to be 6 feet 4 and weighed 260 pounds. He was known for a disposition that was gruff yet kind.

When he died in 1976, he left behind the accounts receivable books and instructions on which debts to collect. He directed his sons to go after a few people who owed bar tabs of as little as $4.

"There were guys who owed as much as $800 or $900 and 90 percent of them he forgave," Jim Heineke said. "He wrote, 'Tell them it's on Monk.' "

Monk also served as Wisconsin Dells' fire chief and police chief, which led to a collection of signs he'd post in the bar window: "Gone Fishing," "Gone Hunting," and "Gone to Fire." Once, concerned that kids were drowning in the Wisconsin River while swimming, he ran for mayor as a write-in candidate and won.

"He built the swimming pool and the ball diamond," Jim Heineke recalls. "Of course, once he spent all the city's money, he was never elected again."

The tavern began around the corner on Oak Street in 1947, then moved to Broadway about 1960. The burger meat came from Quality Market next door, and Monk went over every day to supervise its grinding. He also came up with the idea of putting the grill in the front window and venting the smell out over the street.

Current owner Tom Heller, who bought the bar from Monk's widow, Helen, about 20 years ago, fondly calls the grill exhaust "aroma marketing" and says he'd never change it. Over the years, he's learned that he had better be very, very careful about changing anything.

"I got cheap once and changed the pickles," Heller recalled. The howling and moaning were so bad that the Heinz crinkle cuts were back within days.

When Heller decided to create more room for the summer crowds by expanding into the upstairs a few years ago, the regulars were dubious.

"I kept hearing, 'You're going to ruin Monk's! You're going to ruin Monk's!' " he said. "Believe me, I heard it."

One reason customers feel so strongly is that they visit the place from year to year, and want it to remain the same.

The front of the bar is full of signed portraits of the Badger football teams of the 1950s, guys who played with Monk's sons Jim and John. They include football great Alan Ameche and future historian Stephen Ambrose. Today, Heller said, some of those football players who visited the tavern as college kids bring their own grandchildren in for a Monk burger.

Heller fusses over the grind of meat as Monk did. The hand-patted patties fry atop a pile of minced onions, which marinate in the grease as they cook. One secret, says Heller, is a well-seasoned grill that's scraped but never washed.

"That grill is fifteen years old," he said, "and it's never had water on it."

Which is why Monk's devotees question whether you could ever cook a Monk's burger anywhere else. After inhaling a Monk's burger at the original joint, I headed down Highway 12 to Baraboo to compare.

Monk's opened here on the courthouse square about six years ago when Heller licensed the name to Eric Meyer, the bar manager at Pedro's in the Dells, another of Heller's restaurants.

This September, Meyer closed his Monk's to remodel it into a bright and neat Badger sports bar. Today's laws prohibit venting grease onto the street and worse, Meyer admitted, he had to install a new grill. But he's been working on the seasoning, and warning his cooks not to scrape it too vigorously. He's used to people putting his burgers up to the challenge.

"Everyone says they have to compare the burgers to the original Monk's," Meyer said. "It's amazing to hear the stories of people who grew up eating Monk burgers, especially Illinois people. They know exactly what a Monk burger is."

Meyer's Monk burger oozed with onions and grease and tasted close to the original. Monk's Baraboo caters to a different clientele - workers at the courthouse who are apt to order salads for lunch - and so serves far fewer burgers than the original place. But Thursday, Meyer had just finished filling an order for 20 burgers for a jury serving across the street at the courthouse. That tradition started one year when Meyer was drafted for jury duty and couldn't get out of it.

"I said, 'If I have to be on the jury, at least we're going to eat at Monk's,' " he said. "So jury duty actually worked out for me."

Monk burgers have become a staple of Sauk County juries - but I don't know if this is a good thing for justice. After eating two Monk burgers, I could barely keep my eyes open as I gripped the greasy steering wheel to drive home.

When my kids got off the school bus I was in a darkened room, napping. They found me by following the aroma of onions.

Susan Lampert Smith writes about the people and places that make Wisconsin unique. Send her story ideas at ssmith@madison.com or to Wisconsin State Journal, P.O. Box 8058, Madison, WI 53708.