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April 14, 2025
WISCONSIN RAPIDS – A year after purchasing Misty’s Menu – a restaurant in Wisconsin Rapids – Mike and Chrissy Fleischman said it was time for a new beginning.
As of the beginning of 2025, the couple said the breakfast/lunch restaurant was renamed Pancakes & Burgers.
The Fleischmans, in partnership with the Heart of Wisconsin Chamber of Commerce, held an official ribbon-cutting event last month – officially commemorating the restaurant’s rebrand.
“Misty’s Menu was in operation for more than 20 years before Mike and I bought it in January (2024),” Chrissy said. “We ran it for a year as Misty’s Menu but then decided it was time to make it our own. We wanted to run it for a year as Misty’s Menu to get to know our customer base and let everybody know it’s still the same great place to eat. It was just time to make a change.”
The new name, the couple said, pays homage to their personal favorites – as one would guess, pancakes and burgers.
“One of the reasons we named it Pancakes & Burgers is because we’ve never heard that name (for a restaurant) before, and pancakes and burgers pretty much cover breakfast and lunch,” Mike said. “Also, I like burgers and Chrissy likes pancakes.”
Open seven days per week from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m., Pancakes & Burgers (9041 State Highway 13) the Fleischmans said in addition to pancakes and burgers, the restaurant offers breads, desserts, soups, skillets, wraps and more.
“We make a lot of our stuff homemade here,” Chrissy said. “Our soups, desserts, breads, muffins, etc. are all homemade. We try to do as much here as we can with good quality, homemade stuff. That’s very important to us – the customers deserve it.”
Chrissy said she and Mike are a local family who have lived in the Wisconsin Rapids area their whole lives.
“Our two kids also work here, we live a mile away and it’s something we’ve always wanted to do,” she said. “We’re just happy to have a good customer base. That’s another great thing about the space, too – I was really surprised at the customer base and how fun they are. There is a lot of banter and a lot of joking around in our restaurant, and we absolutely welcome and love that.”
In the year-plus since owning the restaurant, the couple said things are going “very well.”
“Business has been great so far,” Chrissy said. “We are getting busier and busier every week, and our month-to-month numbers from last year are up.”
Though Chrissy said Pancakes & Burgers kept many of the favorites Misty’s offered, they have added several things to enhance the restaurant’s menu.
“Because we are Pancakes & Burgers, we added some more specialty pancake and burger options,” she said. “We also added build-your-own skillet and omelet options – things that weren’t on the menu before.”
The Fleischmans said a good quality restaurant like Pancakes & Burgers – which though it has a new name carries on the legacy of Misty’s Menu – is “very much needed in Wisconsin Rapids.”
“There are a few other places like this, but they are about five miles away,” Mike said. “We have a bar and grill right behind us, but other than that, this is the only restaurant in the area.”
When asked about what the future holds for the restaurant, the couple said for now, it’s status quo for Pancakes & Burgers and its 11 employees.
“I think the best thing to do is to just keep working hard and keep improving the best we can,” Mike said. “We want to invest back into the building and the equipment these first few years, and then maybe down the road, there could be something more.”
A fresh look
Because the old Misty’s Menu “was a bit outdated,” the Fleischmans said they gave the space a facelift.
“We did some major updating on the inside,” Chrissy said. “When we purchased the business, the wallpaper was more than 22 years old – it was time to get rid of that. We made the place look fresh and clean. We redid the walls, got new ceilings and new tabletops. We brought in nice light, fresh decor and we’ve got a lot of plants in here now. We’re going for a clean, fresh look.”
Mike said the building itself was also painted.
“We also got new signage,” he said. “We’ve had a lot of good, positive customer feedback, especially about just cleaning up the place in general. It looks nice and fresh, clean and light in here now.”
Chrissy said they also designed the restaurant’s new logo.
“We had a graphic designer help finish the logo, but we did the initial design of it and then handed it over to him so he could make it all balanced and professional looking,” she said. “The logo has subtle meanings in it. We have Peace-Love-America in our logo, too. The pancakes have a peace sign, we’re holding our hands together with the heart in the middle and then the burger has an American flag in its hand. It’s kind of our unofficial theme – Peace-Love-America.”
Restaurant backgrounds
Though relatively new business owners, the husband-wife duo said that doesn’t mean they don’t have restaurant experience.
Mike said he has almost 30 years in the restaurant industry.
“Half of that time, I spent at a large hotel and conference center here in town,” he said. “That’s actually where I met Chrissy in 1999.”
Chrissy said she and Mike worked at the hotel together for about a dozen years.
“We always knew we wanted to own a restaurant together, but honestly, we never thought it would be a possibility,” she said. “Things have worked out, and we were able to take over the restaurant – we’re happy to be here.”
For more on Pancakes & Burgers, visit pancakesnburgers.com or find it on social media.
