Love that diner!

Framed children’s crayon drawings are on colorful display on one of the walls. Hats from customers surround the beverage machines. Ads for local businesses adorn coffee mugs.

Those elements make Riversedge Restaurant in Saukville unique, but they’re not its biggest draw.

“Food. Good food, the specials,” regular customer Peter Peterka of Mequon said.

“It’s not my personality?” restaurant owner Joe Bartholomew asked jokingly.

“That’s the next thing,” Peterka said. “In here, you’re not a customer. In here, you’re family.”

The banter and the bacon keep people coming back to one of the area’s quintessential diners that serves only breakfast and lunch and takes only cash or checks.

Regular customers account for about 80% of the business. “We like to call them loyals here,” Bartholomew said. “I want to get to the know the customers on a personal level.”

“#MuchLoveToOurLoyals” is painted in large letters across one of the walls, and the loyals forge friendships with each other.

“You don’t see many people on their cell phones here. You see people communicating with each other, which is my favorite thing,” Bartholomew said. “Sit down and talk to people.”

Then there’s the food — homemade white bread and soups, and on Fridays homemade banana cream pie.

Bacon is a best seller, Bartholomew said. He gets it from Bernie’s Fine Meats in Port Washington.

“The bacon’s unbelievable,” he said.

The restaurant on Highway W is located close enough to Port to draw tourists and to I-43 for travelers, and it’s a favorite among locals. Riversedge recently won a Google Review award for best breakfast.

Eggs and hash browns are among the favorites, and on Saturdays Bartholomew offers specialty omelets such as taco, Reuben, chicken, pizza, barbecue or Santa Fe to name a few. The flavors rotate, and Bartholomew’s not the only one who knows the schedule.

“You should see our loyals. They put it on their calendar,” he said.

He develops new recipes while doing work at the restaurant when it’s closed on Sunday mornings.

“I get hungry. I’m going to try this omelet and see if I like it,” he said.

Riversedge opens around 4:30 a.m. Monday through Saturday, often to a small group of retirees waiting in their vehicles in the mostly paved parking lot. Once they enter, they often sit in the same spots around a horseshoe-shaped counter.

“They’re all retired and they sit there and eat their breakfasts,” Bartholomew said.

That includes coffee klatches, “which I love,” Bartholomew said. “They are good people. You get to know them and their grandchildren.”

Among those of working age, Riversedge draws employees of Charter Steel in Saukville and lately first and third-shift workers from the data center in Port, some dining in and some taking food to go. Bartholomew said they hail from places such as Minneapolis, Pittsburgh and the East Coast.

He hears plenty of chatter from a variety of customers in the 48-seat dining room—rising gas prices is a recent hot topic—but chooses to stay out of it.

“To be honest, I try to tune everything out. I just try to stay neutral,” Bartholomew said.

So does employee Kaylin Freeman of Grafton, who has been at Riversedge for 12 years.

“I’m very good at blocking people out,” she said. “I have my mute button. It’s very important sometimes.”

But Freeman, who opens the restaurant a few days per week, still gets to know the clientele.

“Everyone feels like family,” she said.

For employee Robb Stevens, this is family. He’s Bartholomew’s brother-in-law who has done prep and other jobs since Bartholomew and his wife Laurie bought the restaurant six and a half years ago.

“A lot of people say they don’t like working for family. Joe and Laurie are the exception for sure,” Stephens said.

“We have a lot of respect for each other. Whenever I need something from them, they’re there for me.”

Bartholomew grew up in Grafton, the son of postal workers. His mother was an excellent cook, specializing in Italian dishes, and his father made German food.

Bartholomew worked at Boder’s on the River in Mequon, then Juice’s Ghost Town in Grafton before picking up some shifts at Riversedge as a dishwasher in 2004.

“A couple of days per week turned into five days a week and then owning it,” he said.

The Bartholomews bought the restaurant in 2019 from Sharon and Danny Theisen. The pandemic hit months later. Riversedge survived on to-go orders and customer loyalty.

“I worked here so long. I knew so many customers,” Bartholomew said.

“Now we’re busier than in the past.”

Bartholomew commutes from his home in Franklin every day. Most times it’s 40 minutes. At the height of I-43 construction, it reached two hours. Last month’s blizzard was the first time he considered closing. Two longtime employees made the few-minute drive in, and Bartholomew told two others to stay home.

His wife is a registered nurse at Aurora St. Luke’s Medical Center and does the restaurant’s bookkeeping from home. The couple have been married for 16 years and have two school-aged children.

Bartholomew often dons a baseball cap at work, usually one given to him by a loyal.

The wall behind the cash register is filled with hats from customers. People ask all the time, but none are for sale. Sometimes, a loyal’s spouse will bring in a hat after he dies.

Riversedge gets its coffee mugs free from someone who sells ads to area businesses. Bartholomew requires the ads be from loyals’ businesses.

Children who color with crayons in the restaurant have their work framed and put on a wall. The pieces rotate every few months.

Despite the early hours and being on his feet all day—he buys new Nikes every six months—Bartholomew loves his small business venture.

“I don’t feel like I work most of the time,” he said.

Bartholomew’s easygoing approach and passion for his profession and customers spreads to his employees.

“I have high respect for him. He’s in the trenches every day with us. He always takes on the hardest job,” Freeman said.

“Great job. Everybody’s nice to me. We help each other,” dishwasher David Blahnik from Fredonia said.

Saukville’s Jared Blanchette has worked at Riversedge for at least a decade.

“It’s just the people,” he said. “Everyone around here that works is really nice.”

Port Washington’s Jessie La Pant, 16, has enjoyed serving for nearly two years at Riversedge.

“I just like the small business and everyone knows each other pretty well. Everyone is just so kind,” she said.

People have asked Bartholomew about expanding, but he has found one of the hallmarks of Riversedge’s charm is keeping it small.

“If I expand, I might not get that family feel,” he said.