We found it relatively easily and were impressed at the number of cars in the parking lot. It was going to be awesome. We snapped a couple of photos outside the place, since these giant things practically demand photos!
Floyd Bear’s brother – Dells Bear – gets a high five!Right when you walk in the door, there’s a giant blue ox head above the door that talks to you or your kids. It’s a tad odd, but you’d better get used to it… You pay at the register before you walk in and it’s in the $13-15 range, so it’s doable, especially since it’s all you can eat. Not a buffet or anything, they just keep bringing you food to your table until you tell them to stop. We sat down in one of like 5 large dining rooms and checked out the ambience. Lots of Americana and logging photos and paraphernalia on the walls. Kind of log cabin-y and wood-sy. Some tables had benches and some tables had chairs – an interesting mix, but very well designed for the large families populating this place.
The waitress (from Russia) brought us a pitcher of water, two giant pieces of bread and some butter (and also non-butter spread) and took our drink orders. Hooray for me – they had Dew! (Notice the small wooden tip stand on the table to proudly wave your tip in the air like a flag for all other tables to see – weird) The bread was pretty standard, but I’m sure was meant to begin filling us up – not even close, Mr. Bunyan! 
The waitress then brought a couple of simple salads (we had a choice of coleslaw, applesauce, or salad to start), with some 1,000 island dressing. Still not filling us up.
Then the waitress brought out the real food. A couple of BBQ ribs, fried chicken, corn on the cob, corn in a bowl with broccoli and seasonings, and mashed potatoes and gravy. The mashed potatoes were delicious, despite having sort of a unholy yellow gravy on them. I’m not sure what exotic creature reduces down to that color yellow, but it is delicious and I hope to hit one with my car so I can take it home and eat it. Just close your eyes and eat it (twss). The corn in the bowl was quite good and I don’t recall ever eating corn and broccoli together. However, this was a pretty good combo that I might at some point recreate. The corn on the cob was particularly good and sweet. D.Rough and I were pretty happy with the corn, all the way around.The ribs weren’t life-changing, but they were good. They were really meaty with very little gristle. And while they didn’t fall off the bone, they weren’t tough, chewy, nor overcooked. The BBQ sauce on them was really quite good as well. Sweet with just a touch of zing to it. The fried chicken was better than average (though it pales in comparison to the almighty Popeyes). It was cooked well and had great crunch, despite not having a lot of seasonings on it. Still, it was very good.
…So good, in fact, that we had the waitress bring us more fried chicken and more ribs. We got good and full on the main dishes and were pleasantly surprised at how good everything was. It wasn’t quite as good as either of our moms make, but it was great for all-you-can-eat food.
When we were finished with that stuff, the waitress brought out our dessert. Chocolate cake with white frosting. I’m not a cake eater, but I powered through the first bite. Immediately, I could tell something was off. I kept quiet and waited to see D.Rough’s reaction to the cake. She’s got a MUCH more sensitive palette than I do, so I was hoping for some hilarity. She looked at me after her first bite and said, “what did they do to this cake?!” After some quick deliberation, she determined the cake maker had accidentally used lemon extract in the frosting instead of vanilla extract. Yup, that was it exactly. So, if you ever think Chocolate-lemon cake sounds interesting, take our word for it – it’s a recipe for cake fail. It wasn’t good at all. D.Rough ate the cake part and left the frosting (which I’m SURE would have been just fine eaten separately), and I powered through my piece like there was nothing wrong at all.This place has some interesting people watching. We sat behind a large Hispanic family with a bunch of young boys and a mom. The kids were hilarious and saying some seriously funny things. They had the mom in stitches at various points. These guys seemed like a super fun family. That’s the kind of experience you should fully expect at Paul Bunyan’s.
We left the table and headed out into the giant gift shop at the front of the restaurant. If there’s one thing you’ll learn quickly about Wisconsin Dells is every restaurant and store is filled with stupid touristy crap and things kids will cry for… and people will buy it without question. Wow. In fact, D.Rough bought an awesome salt and pepper shaker set of ceramic monkeys. No, I will NOT post a picture of D.Rough’s monkey…
Overall, a great experience at Paul Bunyan’s Lumberjack Restaurant Thingy Place. Apparently, a LOT of my friends recognize the statue and have recalled all sorts of childhood (and more recent) memories. Go us!
Top 5 things about Paul Bunyan’s Cook Shanty
1. Fried Chicken
2. Corn on the Cob
3. Neon gravy
4. Atmosphere/Americana
5. Photo ops outside (aka the Paul Bunyaniosity)
Bottom 5 things
1. Lemon extract is NOT a good replacement for vanilla extract
2. You only get what they have on the menu that night. You don’t actually order anything
3. Soapy coffee cup
4. The breakfast they offer sounds pretty delicious, but we clearly missed that
5. They have cute stuffed animal heads mounted on the wall. As in little kid stuffed animals… mostly creepy but slightly awesome
www.paulbunyans.com
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