You can write on nearly every surface at The Loaded Slate. A slate strip runs down the bar for tabulating tips, wooden tables have hunks of slate where you can copy the chalk drawings by local student artists decorating the walls, and even the glasses have surfaces you can chalk your name onto in case you forget every word except "slate." The bar delivers on the promise of its name in other respects, too, with a menu loaded with filling pub sandwiches and nights packed with games, sporting events, and DJ sets. According to OnMilwaukee.com's 2011 profile, co-owner Joe Kuntz built drop-leaf tables that can be folded flat against the wall after the kitchen closes to flood the space with revelers. "We're family friendly till 10," explains co-owner Shawn Mellon. "Then we become strictly a bar."

During dinnertime, half-pound Angus burgers and the chef's panini of the month arrive with a pile of pub fries, waffle fries, homemade chips, rosemary red potatoes, or coleslaw. Poultry sandwiches also abound, with baked chicken piled with pineapple and pepper jack or assembled day-after-Thanksgiving style with provolone, spinach, and cranberry mustard. Throughout the night, five taps may pump out Strongbow cider, frothy Guinness, and New Glarus Spotted Cow Ale, which refreshes between bites of nachos made on a base of seasoned waffle fries, or reuben sticks, a fried wonton containing the sandwich's famous fillings and last words. Visitors spill out onto the patio on balmy nights, or pile into the back room—dubbed The Tailgate Zone because of the Ford and Chevy pickup beds jutting from the wall—to watch sports on a laptop-compatible projection TV, a 46-inch TV, and two 26-inch TVs.