Out For Bloodies

We recently visited Comet Cafe on Milwaukee’s East Side.

Comet has been around for over 20 years, specializing in comfort foods like home-style meatloaf, cheesy-gooey sandwiches (like the Classic Cheesy Tomato, which I tried) as well as breakfast everyday until 3pm. They are also well-known for their free baskets of bacon during happy hour, Bacon Night on Sundays and their bloody marys.

Comet has appeared on many Milwaukee round-up lists of the best Bloody Marys, but I had somehow never made it there…until now.

I headed down to Comet around 11am on Labor Day with a friend planning on grabbing a quick drink, not really thinking it would be difficult to get in…. We were surprised to find ourselves saddled with a 40-minute wait just to get in the door. Even bar seating was not first-come, first-serve. Since we had already driven down to the East Side, we were committed to making this happen. We decided that if we were going to go through the trouble of a wait and getting seated properly, we might as well eat there, too.

We were finally seated (inside, at the bar) and it took another 10 minutes or so for our server/bartender to address us after a busperson brought us water. We decided we had one shot to order drinks and food, or we’d be waiting even longer. We also contemplated asking for the check up front, too, but decided against it.

Anyway, at long last, our Bloody Marys and food arrived:

MIX: Housemade

CHASER: a Miller High Life pony

FIXIN’S: Lime, olive, mushroom and bacon

PRICE: $9

From the description: “Our house-made bloody mix with Rehorst Vodka. Comes with BACON (of course!) and the cutest little chaser ever: a 7 oz Miller High Life Pony!”

This bloody mary had a nice overall “fresh” flavor, but was not very spicy. It tasted more like pizza or marinara sauce. We had also read reports that this bloody mary was made with Guinness, but we detected none of that and wonder if the recipe has changed over the years.

Aside from the bacon, the garnish was pretty standard. We enjoyed the bacon but found it to be a little limp for our drink on this particular day.

We enjoyed our (huge servings of) food and left full, almost two hours later.

The verdict?

If you’re in Milwaukee, Comet is an institution and you should definitely check it out–just be prepared to wait. The Bloody Mary is pretty good, but if you’re just looking for a beverage, there are plenty of other quicker and just-as-good (if not better) options close by.