Small Bites: The unassailable allure of the Wisconsin cheese hut

It’s time to reimagine your road snack game.

This is our newsletter-first column, Microtones. It runs on the site on Fridays, but you can get it in your inbox on Thursdays by signing up for our email newsletter.

“Small Bites” is about exploring the broader world of food and drink in Madison through approachable and specific experiences.

Summer in the Upper Midwest is equal parts sitting by a lake and spending time in a car to get to said lake. Where I grew up in Minnesota, we had three massive suburban lakes within a 10-minute drive. But don’t assume those lakes are good enough. There are better lakes if you head north (or northeast, into the part of Wisconsin vacationland annexed by Twin Cities Money sometime in the early 1990s). My family would drive up to a Minnesotan vacation spot near where my mom grew up, just outside of Moorhead, and the best we could hope for was some Doritos or a skinny beef stick from the gas station. Pickings were slim, or rather, Slim Jim.

It wasn’t until I was older and heading to college in Chicago that I got to experience the Wisconsin cheese hut. Rising in the distance along the various truckstops of I-94, just cresting over the green tree tops, I could see the red lettering on yellow background perfectly: CHEESE. Inside, the store was jam-packed with various cheddars and goudas, shrink-wrapped or waxed, all proudly in a line to represent America’s Dairy State (California has not—and will not—ever claim the cultural title). Aside from the cheeses, most cheese huts have a wide variety of meat sticks, jerkies, and sausages, and the experience feels more like a grocery store than a road trip fuel-up destination. Especially with all the stacked cases of New Glarus beer. 

But I’m old now. College was 20 years ago. A bag of chips eaten at the wrong time of day in a moving vehicle might ruin my stomach. Don’t get me wrong: a vacuum-sealed bag of cheese curds and some landjäger aren’t health foods. But they are real food. And that can make a difference for an aging gastrointestinal tract. So I say this: it’s time to stop treating the roadside cheese hut as a tourist stop or cultural artifact and embrace them as a quick way to grab tasty snacks. 

Back in December, my partner and I drove down to Miami to visit family. And deep in the middle of Georgia, we finally saw the much-lauded cult-favorite gas station/rest stop/compound known as Buc-ee’s. It was about three-to-four times the size of the Love’s across the interstate with hundreds of gas pumps and a carnival-sized convenience store. Inside, you could find a central hub where hot sandwiches were pumped out at rapid speed (including some head-turners like the hot pastrami). Deeper in, a weary traveler would find themselves lost in aisle after aisle of packaged snacks. A veritable snack haven. A snacker’s paradise. 

We left with some fudge (wait, why?), Beaver Nuggets (just caramel puffcorn), and habañero mango hot sauce (again, why?). All three items had the Buc-ee’s logo on them, but I think it’s clear that Buc-ee’s doesn’t have a facility producing all these foodstuffs with original recipes. It may be a one-stop snack adventure, but I struggled to find anything unique or culturally relevant inside that Buc-ee’s that might suggest I was in a specific region of the United States. Banality, thy name is Buc-ee’s.

Flip that against a roadside cheese hut, and you’ll see what I’m talking about. You might find some award-winning Sartori Cheese varieties like Merlot BellaVitano or MonteAmoré Cheddar. Or you can even pop into Carr Valley’s own retail location just off of I-94 in Mauston. The company’s cheesemaker, Sid Cook, has won “more national and international awards than any other cheesemaker in North America,” as Carr Valley’s website puts it. There are other incredible smaller-but-world-class creameries like Uplands (home of the second-most decorated cheese in US history) and Saxon that have incredible renown and are commonly spotted at these cheese huts. And whatever dairy’s cheese curds you may find while browsing Ehlenbach’s Cheese Chalet in DeForest, it’s important to remember that fresh packed curds are hard to find outside of dairy-rich regions. I’m not suggesting that Wisconsinites take cheese curds for granted, but manna from heaven, if constantly falling out of the sky, is hard to value properly.

What’s a bag of jalapeño kettle chips when you can just peel and eat an entire summer sausage like a banana? Who has the power to judge you for holding a brick of Hook’s Two-Year Cheddar like a sandwich, taking bites out of the corner while you drive on to your destination? These roadside cheese huts are more than just supplies for eventually: they’re repositories for gustatory delight in the here and now. Forget stopping for a frozen custard: there’s a tub of Merkt’s and a bag of pretzels that are calling your name from Humbird Cheese in Tomah. Sure, you can get your fill of high-end cheese from the kind folks at Fromagination when you get home to Madison. But why not indulge in the good stuff while you’re on your way out to an adventure? There’s some really good string cheese out there that I’m sure you’ll want to dig into once you get past Stevens Point.

It’s no secret that Madison is becoming more and more developed everyday. New apartment buildings are needed to meet Madison’s current housing crisis, but they often come at the expense of unique restaurants and businesses. As Dane County continues to grow, more and more of the city will become steel and glass. Just know that when that starts to happen, you always can run away to a roadside cheese hut to dip back into a bit of Wisconsin’s Germanic and Nordic roots. What are you waiting for? Grab a half-pint of mozzarella balls and eat ‘em like a bag of popcorn. Sure can’t do that at any rest stop in Georgia.