The Racine Kewpee

Though not hungry enough for dinner, we stopped at Kewpee Hamburgers in downtown Racine just before leaving town last week to buy milk shakes. I've read that there used to be about 200 places called Kewpee (spelled that way, not quite like the doll) before World War II, though it wasn't a standardized chain in the way McDonald's et al. would be after the war. According to Wiki at least, there are only five Kewpees left: the one in Racine, one in Lansing, Mich., and three in Lima, Ohio.

The spelling might be different, but there's no doubt that the place is named after the Kewpie doll. To say that the restaurant has a Kewpie theme understates things. A Kewpie graces the sign outside. Kewpies are on a row of tiles on the wall of the main room, and on a row of tiles in the bathroom as well, at least the men's room.

Not only that, there's an entire wall of Kewpies and Kewpie-related items in a glass case: new dolls and ones possibly 70 or 80 years old; large specimens and small ones; some naked and others dressed in various ways, such as a bride and groom, Santa Claus and a baseball player. There was a Kewpie clock, puzzle, coloring book, plate and other knickknacks, and some books, including one called A Kewpie Primer by Rose O'Neill, the illustrator who invented the Kewpie as a drawing. Also on display was her cover for the December 1927 issue of Ladies' Home Journal featuring a bevy of Kewpies around Santa (and what is the collective for Kewpies? Gaggle? Pod? Murder?). In any case, Kewpee has more Kewpies than I'd ever seen in one place before, as many as in a small museum.

The shakes were good, maybe an 8.5 on the scale on which the shakes at the Elliston Place Soda Shop in Nashville are 10. Besides shakes, the menu mostly offers hamburgers and other short-order fare, which smelled good.

The place seemed to be popular enough on a late Friday afternoon in early spring. So Racine is supporting its pre-WWII hamburgerie with the pre-WWI doll theme, in preference to chains that span the continent, and I was happy to chip in at $2.40 a shake.