Organ Piper Music Palace

Organ Piper is a unique dining experience. It's essentially a Wurlitzer pipe organ built around a pizza restaurant, where a skilled organist provides entertainment and takes requests (suggest checking the hours that live entertainment is available, it sometimes varies).

Organ Piper went through a phase for a while, years ago, where the pizza tasted more like cardboard than pizza, and many locals - including us - had been avoiding it. When we had kids, though, we gave it another shot, and the pizza was vastly improved. It still isn't the best pizza, but it is pretty good, and the entertainment more than makes up for it.

The organ is rigged to handle not only pipes, but also a variety of other soundmaking devices, such as percussion and the ducks. This is not a restaurant to visit unless you have at LEAST an hour, preferably more like two, to sit and enjoy the show.

Wendy's

Wendy's is a welcome change from the standard fast food burger fare offered by McDonald's. The food is somewhat better quality, and as everyone probably expects, quality does vary somewhat, but I would note that this location has a bit of a history of messing up orders. Best to verify your order when it is taken, especially through the drivethru, and check your order before you drive away. Not a frequent problem, but definitely more often than the average Wendy's.

Adi

ADI's a wholesale distributor serving the security, telecommunications, and low voltage electrical industry. I have no idea why it's listed on this site, and if you're reading this, you're probably not their target audience. It's business-to-business sales, and if you don't have a related business or job in the industry, they're not likely to sell to you.

I thought I'd say that I've been generally pleased with them. Chuck is a fine guy, and the other folks are helpful too.

That's Amore

We've visited That's Amore numerous times over the years, and it is consistently a fairly good restaurant, better than average, but not the best ever. A small waiting area means that it isn't a good place to go during busy times without a reservation, but once you're there, the atmosphere is cozy and pleasant, the service is good, and the food is good to very good. Unfortunately, it tends to be a bit pricier than other options, and it tends to be a little less casual than I'd prefer.

Fazoli's

Fast food Italian is a niche market that Fazoli's has cornered pretty well. Meals are typically ready a few minutes after ordering, with a variety of pizza, pasta, sandwiches, and salads available. Free breadsticks are available, very good though probably really bad for you. Fazoli's used to have an employee wander around periodically handing those out, now you have to go to the counter to get them. The food isn't fantastic, but it is really pretty good, especially considering that it is "fast food" Italian.

Whitlow's Security Specialists

Whitlow's rocks. Key duplication, lock rekeying, safes, keyless entry systems, chipped auto keys, they do it all.

Impressive guys, unlike some teenager at the local home improvement store. Even though they have a huge wall of keyblanks, they usually know which one to pick, rarely having to make a second try. I've probably had about a hundred keys duplicated there, both personal and business, and I'm thinking maybe, maybe once we had a duplicate that didn't work as well as the original.

Whitlow's has only once "failed" me - a child's bike lock with a Chinese pedigree, they told me they didn't stock a keyblank for it, and it'd be less expensive to just swap the lock for a Master Lock.

They'll have good advice for you about security-related issues, their prices are not as cheap as some other places, but as they say, you get what you pay for.

Sun Laundry

Fifteen years ago, Faye Becker had the bright idea to do an "upscale" laundromat in West Allis, and they built an extremely nice facility, spacious, with a waiting area, a play area for kids, coffee/cappucino service, exercise area, tanning bed, etc. Bubbles & Bleach ultimately imploded a few years later, but for the last decade, Sun Laundry has operated a less ambitious and more practical laundromat out of this facility.

Modern equipment, a variety of sizes of washers, ample table space, and a spacious facility make Sun Laundry a nice place to do laundry.

The main problem is the location of the store, near Hwy 100 and Lincoln. West Allis has a lot of traffic control in the area, and you can't easily approach the laundromat from northbound Hwy 100, or, heaven forbid, West Hayes Avenue, without making a U turn somewhere past Lincoln on Hwy 100 (busy AND dangerous to attempt), or turning west on Lincoln and then coming around on 109th Street, which lands you right where you need to be.

Candy's Layton Heights Laundromat

Pregnancy (huh, what's this have to do with a laundromat?) can be a challenging time, bringing about unusual imbalances in the body, etc. We were trying to deal with a problem that an allergist suggested "could possibly" be due to dust mites, and as part of our remediation process, we found ourselves wanting to wash our bedding in hotter-than-usual water. 140 degree water is thought to be sufficient to kill dust mites. However, with kids, our home hot water supply is substantially cooler than that, and we weren't going to putter with it. So we figured on a laundromat. And we started calling around.

Interestingly, most laundromats either have no idea how hot their hot water is, or they will say that they keep it cooler than this in order to "save energy" (I would have thought washing in cold or warm water would do that). Candy's replied - without having to "check with someone" - that their water was definitely at least 140.

Got there, and it's a completely unremarkable-looking storefront next to a few others. Nice large parking lot. We walked in and the gal was locking up the counter, which apparently closes around dinnertime. Still, she stopped to chat with us for a bit, suggested a washer size to use (I tend to overestimate), and we found out that the hot water question was fairly common due to the proximity to Alverno's school of Nursing.

The location looked kind of 70's-ish, definitely old, but was very well kept, neat, and while we were there, someone came in and began repairing a dryer near us. Everything looked like it was well-maintained, took coins easily, and most importantly, worked well.

Marcus Gurnee Cinema

I'm generally not a big fan of Marcus. The latest theaters are overdone, pretentious joints, and it strikes me that I'm paying for that. This, thankfully, is NOT that. This is a good old-fashioned Marcus. Solidly designed, very practical, nice without being needlessly upscale. There are a bunch of screens, I believe around 20 or 22. This offers a nice selection of showtimes, at the expense of potentially getting stuck with a smaller screen.

I would have given it three stars, as a satisfactory joint, but the prices that they're charging for admission (almost $7 for a matinee?) and concessions seemed really steep.

Pick 'n Save

This Pick n Save moved from a mile or so south. The old store was a disaster, with frequent accidents on Hwy 100 due to the design of the road and intersections. Unfortunately, they failed to substantially improve here. Pick is located at the far side of a large parking lot that serves a strip of stores, Pick itself, and a few other places. The parking lot is *very* busy and there is nothing short of a maze of entrances and exits that all feel like they were poor compromises. Traffic entering the "main" entrance may be going to any of the stores, or Walgreens or the bank, and since the entrance is only a block from the massively busy Janesville Rd and Hwy 100 crossing, it can be a real pain to turn in from the southbound side of Hwy 100.

Inside, the store is large and modern. Unfortunately, it seems to lack intuitive organization, and it always seems difficult to find the right area of the store for whatever you're looking for. Worse, there are frequently lines that take a fair amount of time to check out, so it is annoying to go to Pick n Save for a "quick stop" to "pick up a few items." I'll concede that it's probably fine for major shopping expeditions, but I like Sendik's better for that.