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    Portage Cafe

    4.2 (78 reviews)
    Closed 6:00 am - 1:00 pm

    Order Portage Cafe Takeout or Delivery

    Portage Cafe Photos

    PORTAGE CAFE ATMOSPHERE

    What's the vibe?
    Casual
    Quiet
    Good for groups
    Good for kids

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    Recommended Reviews - Portage Cafe

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    Steak and eggs
    Helen H.

    No frills diner-style food, I had the steak and eggs and they make it all to order right over the counter! Great service, very sweet lady helped me out (it was my first and only time in Portage, everyone else seemed like a regular and had good conversations with the workers there). Homey place and the prices are great too compared to Madison or other larger cities in Wisconsin.

    Rushell M.

    Very friendly service. I love that I can see the cook prepare my food. Clean restaurant and good food.

    Blt with fries
    Gina W.

    Good option instead of fast food and I was ordering lunch for my husband, my brother, and myself. We placed our order Via doordash and the whole experience was good! They closed 1pm and I places our order at noon so they were out of the meatloaf sandwiches. Someone from the cafe called me right away once I placed my order for the food and asked me if we wanted to ordere something else instead. They both ordered BLTs and I ordered the turkey sandwich also some cheese curds. The food was good! Expected nothing less!

    Meatloaf sandwich, it is amazing!
    Michael W.

    You will come here and you will like this review because you will really like the food. Also, you will be surprised at how little you spent. We stopped in on our way to Granite Peak (they are the same exit as Cascade Mountain). Cute "old fashioned" diner with barstool seats and booths; a picture on the wall showed the same interior back to 1955. They have large dividers between each booth, which was nice. The waitress was very attentive and she was very quick. The owner, Steve, is on the grill and you can tell he knows his away around a grill. The prices are great, most items are under $10. I ordered Steve's Meatloaf Sandwich, a generous cut of meatloaf, grilled onions, on marbled rye bread; it was amazing. I kept thinking about the the rest of the afternoon. We just got the chips with our meal and they were fresh. My wife got the Reuben; it was great. This was not a Reuben where you took a bit and got a chunk of meat, you bite through and it was TENDER. My son got the bacon cheeseburger and couldn't put it down; he ate it non-stop and said it was one of the best he ever had. This place is no frills but the food is memorable!

    Menu
    Christina W.

    Return trip just three months later. We sat in the same booth and ordered almost the same lunch items. Hubby and I each ordered their famous meatloaf sandwich with chips. Hot cheesy goodness. Teenage son had the bacon cheeseburger with chips again. He inhaled the burger so quickly. It's just that good. Same delicious food. Same great experience. Thank you Portage Cafe!

    Portage Cafe sign

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    1 month ago

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    11 months ago

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    4 months ago

    Cute diner style breakfast/lunch place. Staff is quick and friendly. Food is reasonably priced and homestyle. Definitely would recommend!

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    9 months ago

    We had an awesome breakfast there! Loved the local decor and touch! Service was very good as well. Would recommend!

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    7 months ago

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    2 years ago

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    11 months ago

    I met my wife for breakfast at the Portage Cafe. The food was great and the 2 people running the place were a lot of fun. I recommend it.

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    5 years ago

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    2 years ago

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    1 year ago

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    1 year ago

    Great food and service. If you are looking for a great breakfast, burger, or lunch. This is the place to go. Our home town cafe.

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    8 years ago

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    2 years ago

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    3 years ago

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    4 years ago

    They were wonderful and yet short staff they came thru with flying colors Best local restaurant by far!

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    4 years ago

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    4 years ago

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    4 years ago

    Excellent food! Ordered the Country Fried Steak and Eggs...almost more than I could eat, and I'm not a small guy! Very friendly people!

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    6 years ago

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    13 years ago

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    9 years ago

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    8 years ago

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    8 years ago

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    6 years ago

    Outstanding coffee, blueberry pancakes and scrambled eggs with great service. Thanks!

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    4 years ago

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    9 years ago

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    Upon crossing the sacred threshold of Tamarack Pizza, I did not merely order lunch -- I embarked on…read morea culinary pilgrimage. The Tamarack sandwich arrived like a hero returning from battle, radiant and unapologetically magnificent. The bread? A golden vessel of destiny. The fillings? A symphony of textures and flavors conducting themselves in flawless harmony. Each bite unfolded like a well-paced novel -- rising action, climax, and a triumphant finish. Time briefly lost meaning. Conversations hushed. Somewhere, an eagle may have soared. Was it "just a sandwich"? Technically. But also, perhaps, a reminder that greatness can exist between two slices of bread. Five stars. Would ascend again. Now the real review. Stopped into Tamarack Pizza in Portage and ordered The Tamarack sandwich. It's the kind of place that doesn't need to oversell itself -- it just delivers. The sandwich was solid across the board: well-balanced, fresh, and made the way you hope it will be when you order a house specialty. Good bread, generous filling, and everything worked together without being fussy. Service was friendly and efficient, and the whole experience felt easy. No theatrics -- just good food done right. I will come back next time I'm in the area.

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    Hands down one of the best restaurants ever!…read more The bruschetta was excellent. The salad was tasty. The Reuben left a lasting memory. My friend had the Philly Steak sandwich and said it was the best meal she'd ever eaten. The exterior is absolutely gorgeous with all the flowers. The interior is tastefully decorated and cozy. The service was excellent from the minute we arrived until we departed. I wish so much I lived closer to Neil's!

    We needed a place for dinner while we were staying at our rental and drove past this place and…read morethought it looked interesting. Yelp and google gave it pretty decent reviews, so we stopped in. One thing that was cool was last night the patio was reserved for only those who had dogs. It would have been neat to know that ahead of time and we could have brought our dog. Not sure if that's a daily thing or special for Saturday nights. The inside was cool, you can see the historic charm in this place. We got immediate seating, which was really nice. We were told multiple times the kitchen was backed up and we would have to wait about 45 minutes for our food. That was fine. We figured if we ordered an appetizer to go with dinner it would come out earlier. Our friends appetizers came out nearly an hour later. My husband and I each ordered a cup of the French onion soup and we got it 30 minutes after our friends got theirs. Our main courses came out shortly after that. Two of us ordered the chicken masala, one ordered a steak, and I ordered the salmon. All of our food was amazing. My husband said hands down the best meal in a restaurant in 2026. It would have been nice if the restaurant offered us a free dessert or round of drinks for the extremely long wait. Honestly I was about to ask if they even started making our meals when the soups finally came out, because if they hadn't I'd have said forget it. If I'm being honest, I'd have rated our experience lower, because that wait time was awful. But the food was delicious and this surely can't be something that happens regularly, because if it was, this place would have way less 5 star reviews. If I'm in the area again I'd give this place another shot, and hopefully our wait time is much shorter and the food is just as good.

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    Portage Cafe - breakfast_brunch - Updated June 2026

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