The perfect french fries of Kewaunee, Wisconsin

Jumbo's Good Food, c. 2001

Jumbo's Good Food, circa 2001. Kewaunee Star

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When Joe Hardtke was a kid in the 1980s, Jumbo's Drive-In in Kewaunee, Wisconsin was the place all the farm kids hung out. After hours in the fields baling hay, they would drive over to Jumbo’s for a burger, a gallon of homemade root beer and their legendary fries.

40 years later, people still talk about these fries. Both very crispy and filled with flavor, no one knows exactly how Jumbo's did it, but the taste is still talked about in Kewaunee County.

Since Jumbo's closed for good in the early 2000s, the secret of those perfect fries is at risk of being lost to time, so Joe headed back to his hometown to investigate what made those fries so perfect, and how the story of Jumbo’s is in some ways a reflection on how we all see our hometowns.