TomKen’s Serves Chicken in all the Right Ways

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The sign outside of TomKen’s Bar & Grill (8001 W. Greenfield Ave.) in West Allis says, “Home of the Famous Friendly Fried Chicken” and it holds true. While I’ve always known about this place for their top-rated wings, turns out the story starts elsewhere.

Best buds Tom Falk and Ken Felton started a stand serving fried chicken dinners out of a window facing South 80th Street. Eventually, construction caused the window to shut down and a bigger idea of a joint effort restaurant took its place. Hence the name, TomKen!

We were eating before a Bucks game and caught the earlier part of the Packers crowd on a Sunday night. The bartender Shawn helped walk us around the menu noting that we must try the fried chicken dinner because of its history. It comes with however many sauces of your choosing, fries, and coleslaw—a true classic. I was insistent on wings and helped me choose a good round robin of flavors and heat.

There are at least two special sauces on rotation every night and usually are seasonal—this time it was more Thanksgiving-themed fall flavors. It’s good to note that you can choose either grilled or deep fried for your wing orders, some flavors tasting better one way over another. I went for the cranberry/BBQ/orange juice/peppers rational flavor (grilled), garlic parmesan (fried), jerk dry rub + bourbon/buffalo/brown sugar (grilled), and classic buffalo (fried). The grilled jerk dry rub + bourbon/buffalo/brown sugar (AKA JB3) was to die for! The perfect amount of sweet and heat not taking away from the meat by choosing grilled over fried.

These are perhaps my new favorite wings in town. If you’re a wing person, I can bet you'd agree. The multitude of choices makes it a lot easier for everyone to find wings that suit their flavor. And, if you’re not a wings person, they’ve got all the great bar food menu items you’d expect at a well-known Wisconsin bar and grill, plus a long list of local and domestic drafts.

TomKen’s is spitting distance from the Wisconsin State Fair grounds but they are closed during the fair to do a deep clean and restocking of the bar for the turn of summer to fall. Brilliant, if you ask me! Make your way to TomKen’s and enjoy everything you can while you’re there.