What a cute and delightful restaurant. A country restaurant with matching decor. Waiters and waitresses were dressed in overalls with a red checkered shirt. Drinks were served in a mason jar. The food was so yummy. I overheard the people at the next table say "we must stop here the next time we come into town." And I agree! read more

See all

Down home cooking, albeit a weird name. Had the flap Jack's, nice fluffy and good, reasonable price across from Fox River mall

Having been coming here for years whenever we stop in Appleton to visit family. If you have a lunch here, be prepared to have a light supper later because you'll still be full. The portions are very generous! If you come for dinner, don't have lunch that day so that you'll be able to eat all the food they put in front of you! They serve family style meals, which means big bowls of vegetables, cottage cheese, coleslaw, potatoes all for passing around the table. And that's on top of a heaping portion of whatever you ordered for a main course. Breads are fresh and delicious. Salads, too! Value for the money is very good. We also always stop at the Machine Shed in Des Moines, IA, too. The consistency of food and service is excellent. read more

A wonderful choice for a family meal. A real working fireplace and great little gift store.

The food was amazing and are waiter sandy was amazing he did a great job at serving us he was ver kind and polite he was also very professional at his job read more

This reminds me a lot of a Cracker Barrell, but even better food. Our server did get one of our meals wrong but quickly remedied it. We started off our meal with the most amazing fried cheese that we've ever had. I had the shepherds pie and my husband had the country fried chicken. Both meals were very tasty. Every meal also comes with coleslaw and cottage cheese as a starter. There aren't a lot of restaurants that have edible coleslaw, but this was pretty good, albeit a little sweeter than I make at home. They also provide a bread basket with pumpkin bread and rolls. You won't have to worry about being hungry when you leave here. All in all, an enjoyable experience. We would come back here for sure. read more

The Machine Shed - American Near Me - Appleton, Wisconsin

See all

Fantastic prime rib, both smoked and traditional. Large portions of family style sides. Fresh bread and rolls served with your meal. The kid's meals are served in wagons! Family favorite! read more

The Machine Shed - Great kids meals served in wagons! - American Near Me - Appleton, Wisconsin

See all

Very delicious 'down home' food! Every time I travel back up north for a visit I make time to stop here. The servers are so pleasant and I love all the old farming decor. It's like Cracker Barrel, but better. read more

Last visit I was very disappointed at the chicken pot pie, it was so Salty I could not eat it. I've been here quite a few times and this was the only bad meal I've Had. read more

If you are looking for a restaurant that serves great tasting food for a reasonable price while in Appleton, then this is the place. The staff was friendly and took care of us. I ordered the ribs and everything on the plate was fantastic!!! I've eaten a lot of ribs and they were some of the best I've ever had. My friend had the fish and he was happy with that as well. The price was extremely reasonable considering what you pay for substandard food at other places. The place has a homey feel and they even had the fireplace going. You need to eat here! We liked it so much that we'll be going back again tonight. read more

Yummmmmy! A barn theme makes this restaurants special in its own way. The food is surprisingly delicious and the staff attentive and well-versed. My waitress Tammy, a zaftig girl in the requisite bib overalls worn by staff was cute as a button with a personality to match. The chicken liver appetizer,sautéed with mushrooms and onions is to die for! I'd skip the lumpy gravy that comes on the side and dip them in some catsup. Meals come served with a side of coleslaw and cottage cheese in the old style of restaurants. The ribeye is a bit thin for my taste but surprisingly delicious, I would go for a smaller yet thicker steak ,it makes the overall flavor so much better. But the 10 ounce at $18.99 is not a bad deal and the vegetable side and rice are delicious as well. read more

In from out of town and looked forward to home cooking. Just so happens the special was all you can eat chicken. The chicken was cooked fresh and juicy. Even the second and third order. The sides of mashed potatoes with white sauce and green beans were tasty as well. The green beans were fresh and crisp not soggy. The mashed potatoes were smooth with a chicken stock sauce on top. In addition as an appetizer there was cottage cheese and cole slaw which are not my favorites but were flavorful. Throw in a roll and sweet tea all for a less price than I would have paid for any meal out at home without all you can eat. The service was friendly, efficient and he anticipated the timing to ask if I needed extra chicken perfectly. I would definitely return to the Machine Shed for a meal anytime I'm in the area! read more

We were recommended to this restaurant by a family member that lives here. We were traveling to Appleton for a special event. The waitress was so impersonal and basically rude....it sure didn't enhance our experience. The appetizer was delivered wrong as was my meal, along with cold potatoes. I asked for a new plate of food and she said she would check to see if the cook could do that... asked to see the manager and she said he was helping others and couldn't come by. He eventually came and took the appetizers off the menu along with my meal. I travel a lot and seldom come upon a waitress this rude from the get go. It really ruined our whole experience at this restaurant. Hope yours is better. read more

Food was awesome. I'm not a coleslaw fan, but theirs was excellent. I ordered the chicken strip dinner with sweet potato fries. The strips were hand-battered and almost resembled a fish fry. Sooo good! The fries were very tasty, but soggy. Is it possible to get crispy sweet potato fries? My boyfriend got the tangy pork tenderloin (stuffed with sausage, asiago cheese?) with tart cherry sauce and sour cream. He was happy. My dad, aunt and uncle all got the meatloaf dinner. Huge! But they were all satisfied. On the way out, I bought some Blackjack gum (my dad and relatives remembered it from their childhoods...). The checkout girl said the taste was "interesting." Hmm. I hate black licorice, but I thought this gum was good, although it ran out of flavor in less than two minutes. My only complaint is with the mason jars that my soda came in....Too small! read more

Best breakfast I've had in a long time. Highlights were the thickest piece of bacon I have ever seen and french toast to die for.

I ate at this place on a Saturday evening and the lack of business should have been a clue to not eat here. I ordered a chicken sandwich, my last meal of the day, took it home and enjoyed it. It tasted very good. However, I woke up a few hours after eating (I ate at 9 , went to bed at 11), violently sick. Throwing up for a steady 8 hrs. Yuck. Today I called to let them know what happened and the manager acted like it was my fault I got sick. No sympathy, no customer service whatsoever. I will never step foot in there again. read more

Been there twice this week ..... staying at near By hotel. Food is above average, service was good and quick. Cute stuff in the gift shop.... some kinda cheap though, do be careful. Last night we went for dinner, all you can eat fish three ways . Then I ordered dessert to go....cherry cobbler. What a huge disappoint.... cherry pie filling with brown sugar sprinkled on top and heated up ? Really? In the trash it went! read more

Not nearly as good as I'd heard. The service was awful: we had to beg for tea and water refills, our server disappeared and brought my husband unsweet tea when he ordered sweet. The top slice of bread on my sandwich was actually wet. I asked a passing server to locate our server for us since our server was MIA for at least 5 minutes. I saw the second server point out our table to our server, then our server walked straight past us to another table that had just been seated. Then she went to another table and then disappeared. I waited a few minutes and then flagged down another server. I explained the issue with the bread and asked if she could have them replace the bread. She said she would take care of it and let our server know...server B returned the newly breaded sandwich. Our server never returned and asked if it was better or acknowledged there had been an issue. The bread on round two completely fell apart...not at all sandwich strength. My husband had the all-you-can-eat fish special. Again, he had to practically beg for more fish. When the server did finally come by, he told her he wanted the broiled fish. She walked back to the kitchen, was gone a few minutes, then returned and asked what kind of fish he wanted. She didn't pre-bus anything on the table...every plate and dish brought stayed through the entire meal. And, she didn't offer dessert. Overall, not at all the experience or food quality I'd anticipated. I'd heard great things about these restaurants...very disappointed. Definitely won't be back. On a good note, the Baked Potato soup was pretty good while it was hot. read more

Short: Very nice, homemade food. Long: My flight got in at 9pm. The Hampton said to walk over to the Machine Shed (Cracker Barrel style restaurant) because they're open until 10. Hmmm. They closed at 9pm. The nice lady inside scrounged my up some potato soup, a salad, and some apple bars. I ate at the bar with a bar tender who I'm pretty sure wasn't in high school yet and some australian pilots here for the EAA week. What a nice lady to feed a stranger sneeking into a closed restaurant at 9:30. Thumbs up. read more

Horrible food and horrible service. Hostess rolled her eyes when we asked for a booth. Then waitress forgot our soup, soup was horrible salty that you couldn't even eat it. Took two reminders to get condiments and slow service. Also no one manning the bar for drinks. Won't be back. read more

Nothing was good. Food used to be amazing and the servers used to be so nice... but now... shitty service.. servers act like their heads are in the clouds and wont acknowledge you when your trying to move past them and they just stay right where they are and dont move. Great place but needs some improvement. Plus the server asked if i needed a kids menu... im 20... thought it was a bit rude. read more

Just had dinner. I had brisket and my wife had fried chicken. Food was awesome and service great. If you have carrot cake, it is something you need to share. Will definitely go back. read more

Some of the best food I've had! I had the 16oz sirloin and it was like butter, much better than the big chain steak places. My friend had the smoked prime rib and it was like nothing we've ever had, just wonderful. The staff was really friendly and quick. All around a really good experience! read more

this was our first time here and we were looking forward to it. But, it took our waiter 20 minutes after we sat down to come give us coffee and water. Another 15 for him to come back and take our order and then 30 minutes to get our food. We got charged 5.50 for 2 small cups of coffee with our waiter only checking on us one time to see if we wanted refills. (Keep in mind I noticed 4 wait staff with a bus boy working during a not so busy time. I work in a restaurant so I'm very observant to these things) also if you're going to charge that much for black coffee leave us a pot or check on us more often! When we received our food, both of our meals were cold. The burrito had cold spots all over with col with unmelted cheese, cold eggs and even still frosty chunks of green peppers. it was un-eatable. the biscuits and gravy was luke warm as if the gravy was microwaved for a minute. It doesn't make sense as it was really not that busy and they had plenty of staff working tables. Between the wait times, the over priced options and cold food, this was the worst breakfast we've ever had. Maybe the worst food we've ever had going out. will never go back and highly recommend going elsewhere as there are tons of other options near by read more

Not too keen on this restaurant because the food is not great. You can get the same food in many places. America food similar like fast food. Don't know will go back. read more

Haven't been here in ages and we were heading to the Fox River Mall to do a little Christmas shopping. Decided to stop for breakfast first. My husband and I both ordered The Farmers Daughter. If you say "I Love Eggs" you get an extra one for free-yay-right?! That's where the good ends. Ordered scrambled eggs, hash browns, sausage links, a biscuit with gravy and a pancake on the side. Coffee was good but food took forever to get to the table. When we got our food, my order was wrong. Fried eggs and bacon. Not scrambled and sausage. No biggie-waitress brought me my eggs and I swapped bacon for hubby's sausage. Ate my biscuit first. Super dry. Gravy was good. Eggs tasted "burnt". Hash browns were very oily. Pancake was bland. After all the mix ups, manager took care of our entire bill-very nice, especially since we didn't complain at all. But then we had no way of leaving a tip....waitress made a few mistakes, but nothing awful. I was able to scrounge up a couple dollars. One star for slow cooks, awful tasting food but the waitress was attentive-and everyone makes mistakes. read more

Have been to the Machine Shed twice now. Went the first time on the recommendation of a family member. My husband & I each ordered the fried pork tenderloin sandwich - this is one of our favorites and very few places offer it. We were both less than impressed; meat was overcooked & dry. Soup was good & fries were okay. The waitress was practically non-existent - and they weren't that busy. I had asked for mustard when she brought my sandwich. After eating half the sandwich & still waiting, I finally stopped another waitress and asked her to bring us some! Never saw our waitress again until she brought the check - but we were seated near the kitchen & we could hear her in there laughing it up with someone. But - okay, everyone has off days, so today we tried it again. Unbelievably, it was actually worse. Well, our server was better; attentive & helpful - but the food was beyond bad. My husband had a hamburger, which was prepared as he ordered it - but he said it had absolutely no taste. I ordered a chicken sandwich - quite frankly, I should have been eating on my shoe - it was that overcooked & dry. I pulled off one edge of the chicken and it was literally burnt black. I kind of deconstructed the sandwich and ate the bacon (also overcooked) and part of the chicken that was at least chewable. Also, the slice of tomato on the sandwich - green, with just a bit of red around the edge. Do people not LOOK at the food they are serving?? The amazing thing was the French fries - how the heck can you ruin French fries? But these were by far the worst fries I think I've ever had - they tasted like that they had been par cooked, which is not unusual in restaurants - but that they had never dropped them for the final cooking. Absolutely no flavor and total cold mush inside. Why didn't we send the whole mess back, you may ask? Because we had voiced our disappointment after the first visit and the manager sent us a gift certificate to try them again. So we did - but it seems that nothing has changed - so we just wrote it off as a really bad meal that didn't cost us anything. The only reason I'm giving this two stars is because it is a really nice looking, clean restaurant - and today our server was very nice - but until they figure out how to fix the kitchen, we won't be back. read more

Good place for a hearty classic breakfast, ordered the "Hungry Man Breakfast," nice generous portions. read more

The Machine Shed - American Near Me - Appleton, Wisconsin

Love it best ribs in Town. Nice and friendly service the prime rib was to die for. They had toys for the kids to play with.

My hangover fix. I get a bacon bloody mary and rock the Sunday buffet. Pretty good with a ibuprofen, walk out of there feeling like million bucks. read more

The server Becky was nice. My husband tried the award winning pork with stuffing and the meat was dried out. I ordered their ribs that are suppose to be smoked there and charbroiled. They tasted as if baked in the oven....hardly any flavor except sauce. The homemade applesauce was great. Also their menu shows more ribs and backed beans more ribs than what u get. We did not have a bake bean choice on their menu. We saw the TV commercials so we thought we would try it. Server was very friendly and good in her job...just a little disappointed on our food selections. The two soups: chili and potato were wonderful, flavored well and the bread was yummy. Just our two main courses could use some attention. Ribs were better at Famous Daves. Their cinnamon ice cream was tasteless....was told it was Kemps....I added their apple sauce to a scoop of cream on my own and gave it some taste. The ice cream was flat in flavor..... We may come back and try it again.....we live about one hour away. read more

We had a great experience at the Machine Shed. We went for brunch. When I think of brunch, I think of buffet (I hate getting to "brunch" and finding out you have to order off of a menu...grrr), and that's how their brunch is set up. The parking lot looked like the place would be packed, and it was moderately busy, but our service was still super fast (with one exception) & super friendly. The ease and speed may have something to do with the fact that most people were probably ordering the buffet, leaving the servers only to get the drinks and the check (which was veeeery slow in coming, unfortunately). The food was great. There was a section with salad and fruit, then there were waffles with a little waffle topping station with everything you'd ever want on a waffle), then there was the main hot buffet. The hot buffet had bacon, eggs, hashbrowns, fried chicken, mashed potatoes, corn, and there was lots of other stuff I can't recall. They were also serving soup, and they had an omelet station set up. There was also a "make-your-own-bloody-mary" bar, which (having also seen it at The Bar on Sundays), I think is a good idea for some people, but I probably wouldn't attempt it, because I don't know what I'd end up with, and who wants to waste a shot or two of perfectly good vodka? I say the bartender knows best when it comes to that :) Anyway, everything was set up nicely, the atmosphere was friendly & welcoming, I love their little gift shop and wanted to buy half of the stuff in it, and... that's all I can think of :) The *only* issue we ran into was that it took quite awhile for our server to get our check to us, but it wasn't a painfully long time, just enough to make one-half of a heart above my head disappear (see game: Diner Dash). ha :) read more

If you're looking for a breakfast spot look no further. Their food is unbelievable and will fill you up! Very similar atmosphere to a cracker barrel. Give them a try! read more

This place is always packed on Sundays- morning through early afternoon. We were there yesterday for the first time and tried their Brunch buffet. Fruit, mixed greens, french toast sticks, waffles (whipped cream & berry compote too), cheesy potato hash, scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, fried chicken, biscuits & sausage gravy, mashed potatoes, made to order omelettes, cookies, mini cinnamon rolls, fruit turnover and chocolate fountain with marshmallows, rice krispie treats, pretzels & cookies. It's a big spread but unfortunately it wasn't all good. Chicken was great. Eggs were overcooked. Biscuits were fluffy at first, but they put out such large quantities that it takes forever to finish and for them to refill with fresh food. Cinnamon rolls were hard- like they had been sitting out for awhile. Chocolate chip cookies were a bit burned. Never got any bacon- they never refilled it!! Fun atmosphere, coloring pages for the kids and even toy tractors for them to play with! If we ever return we may just order a plate vs. the buffet. read more

It was Meh! Just ok. Server was Melissa. Re-confirmed the details of my order and she replied "I heard you".....then she smiled. Kids pancakes were undercooked. Eggs were not that great -- how do you mess up eggs? They were not scrambled but appeared that the cook forgot to scramble and then did it at the end? Decor was great. Great prices. Will not return....meh. read more

Average home cooking style meal. We had the prime rib and was not impressed. The server was friendly and the food was good, but not something I would recommend. read more

This place is the best I love it soooo much. The food was flavorful and had a great taste. Me and my family loved it it is such a family friendly place to be. I had a server named Jason and he was very welcoming. He shows us all of the food opinions nicely and even cared about us. The breakfast was very good the bacon was krispy but you can choose how you want it. I am decently coming back. And this is my new favorite restaurant it was very clean and yummy. Thank you Jason, I totally recommend this go check it out. read more

Great food and friendly staff. They have a full bar that's served a great Wisconsin old fashion. For dessert I would highly recommend the apple dumpling. It is a homemade dumpling served warm with cinnamon icecream. read more

Went there today at 12:30 in the afternoon for a late breakfast or a lunch. The hostess mumbled so badly that it was almost impossible to understand her. Perhaps every 10th word was understandable. Given a booth and two menus one for each of us, turns out one of the menus was for breakfast which they don't even serve at that time. By the time the waitress camp to take our order we were planning on having breakfast and had decided I want we're going to eat but then she looked down and saw our breakfast menu is that I don't know you can't order from that we don't serve breakfast now. So I have to take another couple minutes to decide on a lunch item my wife ordered a half sandwich and soup. The soup was brought out to her first and about 10 minutes after she finished the soup they brought out her sandwich one tiny little sandwich on a huge plate with nothing appealing about it. My food with adequate but the service was less than sub par. It would've been nice to see management in the building but apparently there was no one around. I would give this place negative stars if it was possible. read more

Machine Shed in Appleton is one our favorite restaurants to go to. The service is amazing. Tonight we had Ester as our waitress and she was very attentive to our needs. She was so efficient and went out of her way to please always making sure we had everything we needed. Michael the manager stopped by our table to make sure we were well taken care of as well. Our son had the Pot Roast and loved it. I had the Cobb salad and it was so fresh. My husband always gets the fish or Parmesan crusted pork!!! Yum!!! Can't wait to return. read more