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Taste Article, AMM, May 2018

Taste Article for Appleton Monthly May 2018

Breakfast Anyone?
By Jeffrey Jordan
The history of the sparkling clean and friendly Apple Valley Pancake House restaurant on Wisconsin Avenue in Appleton, Wisconsin, starts in a mountain village in the Balkans.
A young man migrates to a city and learns to be a welder. His friends invite him to join them as they migrate to the United States. His boss tells him,”Stay here, I will pay you more. Besides, you won’t like it there.” He thanks the man, but he packs up his wife,  three children and he moves to the US ending up in Chicago. 
His first job was washing dishes for ten or twelve hours a day seven days a week. At this point he agreed with his former employer,  he didn’t like it here. But he saved some money, got some help from a relative and opened a restaurant in Edgerton outside of Madison Wisconsin. Content to make maybe a thousand dollars or so a month, he was surprised when he made thousands of dollars per month so he expanded his business to other locations
He drafted his boys to work in the restaurant. Because necessity and the boy's curiosity, they ended up attending the finest restaurant management school you could find, by working their way through all of the jobs in their Father’s business. This included the sale of successful ventures and starting up new ones. 
After over thirty years of this family boot camp, one of the sons, Ali Useini took a sabbatical of two years off in Florida. When he decided to start a new restaurant, he returned to Wisconsin. His restaurant on Wisconsin Avenue is built and operated by the three components Ali feels a restaurant must have, consistently good food, made from fresh ingredients and delivered by friendly service. 
He is particularly proud of his staff. “In this labor market people come and go, but I’ve got some very loyal hard working people and that’s why it all works the way it’s supposed to work.”
Maybe loyalty has something to do with it, but maybe it’s a boss who opens at 7:00 am and closes at 3:00 pm so he and his employees can spend time with their families.
The method behind all of this success is the fascination of having one of the most varied and fun breakfast menus in the area. With a build your own skillet and omelet option, there are literally hundreds of dishes that can be created. Besides eggs and pancakes and all of the morning standards, Apple Valley offers waffles and crepes.
Everybody loves breakfast but not everybody likes the same thing. And if the portions are too big for you, that friendly waitress or Ali himself will be glad to box it up for you to take home.

Apple Valley Pancake House
500 E. Wisconsin Ave,
Appleton WI 549111
920 221.3661

Open at 7:00 am closes at 3:00pm

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