The Summer Kitchen

The Summer Kitchen
10 425 Water St
Ephraim, WI 54 211
The Mrs. loves Door County and has been there several times before we meet.
We spent a full week in Door Country in September 2015. The Mrs. had been many
times in her past visits to Door County to the Summer Kitchen restaurant.
The Mrs. wanted me to experience the Summer Kitchen, we went on Wednesday September 23, 2015.
When we arrived there was a single waitress and a single waiter and the kitchen chef.
The waitress came by to get our order and while I was talking to her she turned around and walked away and left me in mid-​sentence. The Mrs. explained it away as though the waitress
had a hearing challenge. Then the waiter came by and took our order.
The Mrs. had her empty glass, waiting for a water-​refill at the hedge of the table, the waitress
passed our table half-​dozen times and never offered to fill her glass with water.
After our food was served the waiter came by several times and turned his back to me and would ask the Mrs is there anything else she wanted or needed, but never asked me.
You see, we are an interracial couple and Im African-​American. The Mrs. never got drift of
what was happening but it was obvious neither the waiter or waitress wanted to serve me or
had any desire to be hospitable and professional with me. I could feel the tension and how hard the waiter and waitress worked to ignore me and make me feel uncomfortable.
I will never visit The Summer Kitchen restaurant ever, its is obvious a racist staff that works there. Either the owner is blind and doesnt care how his restaurant is run or the waiter and waitress are the owners.
A racist restaurant, beware if your not white!
I will never visit The Summer Kitchen ever again!

Friendly, quaint breakfast spot that’s ideal for the perfect way to start a day! Try the quiche, it’s a Jeffrey recommended way to win.

Place has declined in quality over the years Soups no longer taste really good and some seem to contain toxic levels of sodium. Bread on soup bar borders on inedible. Ridiculous prices remain.

Spectacular food, tried three soups and all were phenomenal, kids meal was great, luckily my little fella couldn’t finish and the other meal was the cashew chicken salad which disappeared quickly. The service (Michael) was exceptional. Friendly, fast and very polite. Can’t wait to go back.

Just visited Door County 1^st time for a family vacation. This placed look inviting. Stay away. Bad slow service. Ok food. Way over priced for soup and sandwiches. Ask to take home left overs. You get a deli tray and a baggie. Order chicken tenders. You get 2 for $ 8. Bad bad bad experience. Shock at $ 120 bill. Begged for pitcher of water. Such a bad start to our family vacation. Avoid this place!

Simply the best soup ever, in a charming cottage setting surrounded by beautiful flowers.
Go with a big appetite so you can order the taster’s cup and try ask five of the offerings in the soup bar. The chicken and dumpling is a classic but there are also more intriguing offerings like spicy tomato and dill and French cabbage.

Killer Soups! I can only give them 3 stars as their prices are beyond ridiculous, $ 12.95 for a bowl of soup, REALLY?

We were here a few years ago and now in October 2014. always a selection of 5 homemade soups and homemade bread at the soup bar. My husband and I both really like this place. Very eclectic décor.

I love soup. Especially homemade soup. That was so awesome. I love bread. Bread and soup. So good. My mom got cream of mushroom and wild rice while I got cabbage. So good. I love cabbage. Best cabbage soup I’ve ever had. It wasn’t too salty or thin. The broth was great. I also had the tuna fish sandwich which was also excellent. The bread was grilled to perfection. Greasy and soft but still crispy. Sooo good. The service was great too. It’s a little weird that you have to tell them how much you want to tip when you pay, though. I mean, my mom and I are good tippers (both old servers) but I can only imagine it’s very uncomfortable for people who don’t tip so well. You can run but you can’t hide! Everyone will know how cheap you are!!! Next time in in Door County, I will absolutely go back here.

The place was almost empty when we got there and I can see why now. You get a teacup of soup with your meal and this apparently is the trademark of the place. I got the tomato dill basil soup as it was the only one that appealed to and it was very heavy on the dill.
Dinner was a so-​so BBQ chicken for the wife and broiled whitefish for me. Had to use a lot of salt and pepper to add any flavor to both of them. Entirely forgettable.
So many better places to go.

Its a family owned place. I went there for breakfast. It has a nice ambiance. The french toast was OK .
Did not find anything extraordinary !

Went here for breakfast one morning. Had a great breakfast of pancakes with apples. What I was expecting was simple pancakes with apples on top, however what I got was pancakes with apple slices baked into the pancakes.
Was a great breakfast and it was nice to sit in the little enclosed area looking out on their garden. To see the birds coming and going was very peaceful.
Service was friendly and my coffee cup was never empty.

Best breakfast in Door County. Great service. Friendly family run restaurant.

I am sad to see that the average is 3 stars for this quaint stop at the northern part of Ephraim. It is an unassuming jaunt across the street from my favorite shop, Stone Cottage. My hubby and I needed some sustenance before our bike ride at Peninsula, and the Summer Kitchen delivered a healthy plate. A hefty serving may be the better way to put it. I ordered the quiche, thinking I would have this light breakfast of eggs and crust with some cheese and spinach. Uh. No. Try HUMONGOUS slab-​o-​pie with gooey, oozing cheese, lots of spinach, and this amazing crust on top. The actual pie crust held up to all of those elements, and I found myself diving into that more than the rest (I didn’t want to get too filled up). But, it was soooo worth the dollars. I noticed comments about prices, but I would say they make it worth the check total. I had a side of fresh fruit and this nicely spiced apple sauce. My only downgrade came with the peanut butter cookie. Although it is mondo like everything else, I was not a fan. That is more of a preference thing. I want a thicker, fluffier, peanut butter cookies that screams PEANUT BUTTER. It had good flavor, but just not my fave. My hubby loved it though, along with his nice portion on the traditional breakfast plate. I want to return for a lunch in the future, and see if the second meal of the day was as good as the first.

The Athenian salad was unbearably salty. I told the waitress, but I was still charged (even though I didn’t eat the salad) $ 15 for it. If you want soup or bread, this is your place. But for a real meal, don’t go here.

They have great soups and pretty good Mexican food. However the service and pricing is what led me to give them 2 stars. They are completely understaffed when I went in for a mid-​week lunch. I think there was just one guy running around and he was doing his best but it was slow. Also if you want to split a meal and get the soup you have to pay $ 5.95 and only get one small cup of soup. Seriously… it can’t be that expensive. Even with a full meal you only get a cup of soup… lame, I wanted to try a couple but wasn’t allowed to. You can’t call it a soup bar and only get one trip.

This is one of my favorite lunch spots in Door County. I admit, it’s a little overpriced — they increased the prices again, so you’ll pay upwards of $ 12 for a cup of soup and a (large) sandwich with fruit on the side. However, I like the atmosphere, the service is usually good, and the food is creative and tasty.
I usually get something called the «baby boomer veggie club,» which is three slices of wheat bread with cheddar cheese, lettuce, tomato, cucumber, creamy herb dressing and sunflower seeds. The herb dressing and sunflower seeds really make this sandwich unique. When you place your order, you are given a cup to go up to the soup bar and choose your soup. There are usually 5 – 6 soups to choose from; I often get the chicken dumpling, which is very good and has tender chunks of chicken. If you don’t want to order a sandwich, salad or entrée, you can simply order unlimited trips to the soup bar (there’s freshly baked bread up there, as well) and sample all of the soups.
You can dine indoors or outside here, but no matter where you sit, you feel as though you’re in the middle of a garden. There’s also kind of a vintage/​cottage feel to the place. That’s one of the draws of this restaurant — it’s very pleasant. The bathroom is tiny and could be better, but the restaurant itself is liking going to a tea party in your grandmother’s garden. In fact, if you were going to take your grandmother to lunch, this would be the perfect place.
Other than being kind of overpriced, and not the greatest place to go on a day when the temperatures are in the 90s (this place doesn’t really have air conditioning), the Summer Kitchen is a terrific place for breakfast or lunch. It’s conveniently located right on Route 42 across from the Red Barn shops. There’s plenty of parking.

Love this place and their friendly (French?) atmosphere! After visiting Door County many times, our friends insisted that we visit this place for lunch.
They were so right! The soup is delicious and we’ve never gone wrong with their sandwiches. This visit we had the Traditional Corn Beef Sandwich and the Pita Pocket. Then there’s dessert.
One slice of pie is perfect for two. One very large slice of banana cream pie for today!

Came here with a large group of 8 adults and a baby on Sunday morning and were seated right away. They have an outdoor eating area which would have been nice on a milder day. We were seated by the soup bar which had about 5 or 6 different soups.
The service was very friendly and prompt. I ordered the country skillet (I think that’s what it was called) and liked the idea of having sprouts to top the eggs. The hashed browns were nice and crisp. I liked how the restaurant had a mexican flair to it, offering breakfast burritos and horchatas. Free refills on the horchatas too!

The food here was just okay. It is overpriced.
The service left something to be desired as well. Came here on a fall afternoon, and yes there were people, but the staff was stressing me out! they were running around saying how busy it was, and honestly it just came off as them being rude.
I don’t know if I’d recommend this to anyone, the service was that bad! The food was just okay (i had mexican, my mom had a salad). The soup was just okay, and like the others said overpriced. It ended up costing me $ 35 dollars for that meal, and to be honest it was about $ 25 dollars too much!
The outdoor seating was the only positive I had in this dining experience, but with a view of 42, even that isn’t that great…