Olive Tree Café
/3570 E. Puetz Road, Oak Creek, WI
“Olive Tree” is a relatively new name—it used to be the Market Place Café, as it’s located in the Market Place shopping center, a small, quaint looking enclave of various, specific businesses. I’m not sure when they changed the name, or if they changed management or owner, but the place looks exactly the same. I used to ride my bike down here—a couple of years ago—kind of my biking distance limit. It’s a family-owned family restaurant—I’m not sure if the family has changed—they were nice, personable here, before—no change. Three meals a day and a big menu—it must be a busy kitchen. There’s a free-standing dessert display—they have pies.
The décor is standard family restaurant look, with booths and tables. Nothing weird or spectacular, and totally comfortable. The single most important thing to me is booths—they have plenty. Equally as important—breakfast—I’m not sure how late it’s served, but there’s a full menu. I had the old standby, a Denver Omelette, and homefries (called “American Fries” in this weird part of the country). Both very good. I didn’t order coffee—I’m drinking an espresso, these days, when I get up, and that’s it. I am guessing they have diner coffee and offer refills. It looked that way. The place was busy, but not stressful. I was with friends, but I could have felt comfortable writing in a notebook while eating.
My focus is no longer food and coffee, since my diet is limited. I am happy as can be with decent food. If a place is spectacular, I will talk about it. Nothing amazing here, but the Olive Tree Café’s perfect rendering of a classic family restaurant is, in itself, worth mentioning, and worth returning to. As I’m now in the business of redefining what a diner is, I wholeheartedly will refer to this place as a diner. It has all the elements. There are some video gambling games off to the side—or somewhere—easy to ignore, and no problem. I didn’t notice music or TVs, which is good (I’m not entirely sure—there was a lot of people hubbub, and it’s a big place). The charms here are subtle, but sometimes subtle charms are the best—this place is an absolute example of that.