There are no set prices at these Milwaukee restaurants, which offer various pay-what-you-can options.
There are two things listed on the menus of almost every restaurant in the world: the food it offers and the price for that food. But that’s not the case at some restaurants and cafes in Wisconsin, which offer pay-what-you-can meals and service.
Pay-what-you-can meals offer food on a “pay-it-forward” sort of model, where customers can pay whatever they feel like for a meal: whether it’s going above and beyond because they are impressed with the quality of food, service, and mission of the restaurant, or paying less than what they would at a traditional restaurant, because that’s what they can afford.
These initiatives are aimed at tackling food insecurity and at providing dignity and a restaurant experience to everyone, regardless of their income. There are several pay-what-you-can dining options in Wisconsin, including one in Milwaukee and two in the Madison area.
What is pay-what-you-can dining?
Pay-what-you-can restaurants and meals are exactly what they sound like: meals that don’t have a fixed price. Instead, customers pay whatever they can afford or feel is adequate for the meal.
Why do restaurants offer pay-what-you-can?
Restaurants that offer pay-what-you-can meals typically do so to help out the community. Some restaurants, like Milwaukee’s Tricklebee Cafe, are located in food deserts, an area that lacks access to affordable, nutritious food, and the goal of these establishments is to give community members a local option that provides nutritious food for whatever price they can afford.
Is it stressful to order at a pay-what-you-can restaurant?
Ideally, it shouldn’t be, but Hailey McLaughlin, the food and beverage coordinator at the Milwaukee Children’s Museum, which houses The Lunchbox Cafe, a pay-what-you-can cafe, says that some patrons may feel intimidated when it comes to choosing what to pay.
“We tell people that you can pay a little, a lot, or nothing at all,” McLaughlin said.
She said that some customers often want to know a price or price range to ensure they’re paying a “fair” amount. But customers ultimately shouldn’t worry about it, because pay-what-you-can means exactly that.
“Sometimes when people come up to the cafe, they’re a little intimidated or stressed out because they want to know what the food is worth,” McLaughlin said. “I like to break that tension by saying that they can pay $0, or $5, or $8,000,000,000, it really does not matter. We want you to be able to feed your family.”
What restaurants offer pay-what-you-can dining in Wisconsin?
There are three pay-what-you-can dining options in Wisconsin: Tricklebee Cafe in Milwaukee, Ollie’s Madison in Fitchburg, and the Lunchbox Cafe, which is located in the Madison Children’s Museum.
Tricklebee Cafe
4424 West North Ave., Milwaukee
Tricklebee Cafe owner Rev. Christie Melby-Gibbons always intended the Milwaukee restaurant to be an entirely pay-what-you-can cafe, ever since opening in the city’s Washington Park neighborhood in 2016.
“We just have a bucket system, people just drop their money in,” Melby-Gibbons said. “Whether it’s a handful of change, or a few $5 bills, or sometimes we have people put a $100 bill in, and that helps offset other people’s costs.”
The restaurant offers a constantly rotating menu of healthy meals, including soups, bread, salads, dessert options, and drinks.
Instead of paying anything for their meal, Tricklebee Cafe also offers customers an option to volunteer at the restaurant, wrapping silverware, bussing tables, packing snack bags, and picking up litter around the restaurant.
“It helps us; we don’t have to hire as many staff because a lot of people volunteer,” Melby-Gibbons said.
The restaurant’s owner said that Tricklebee Cafe usually receives around “two or three” volunteers per day, adding that it’s usually “an unhoused neighbor, or a child from the neighborhood.”
“It’s usually someone without a steady income, but they give us their time, and that helps us a lot,” Melby-Gibbons said.
Ollie’s Madison
2951 Triverton Pike Drive, Fitchburg
A vast majority of the dining options at Ollie’s Madison, a casual dining restaurant in Fitchburg, have a listed price on the menu. But the restaurant also offers a pay-what-you-can meal, allowing customers to pay whatever they’re able to for three different options.
Owner Dave Heide said he decided to implement a pay-what-you-can meal after Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits were threatened by the federal government in 2025 to help community members who were struggling to be able to afford a meal out.
“There were people who were literally running out of food who needed it,” Heide said.
Everyone who orders the pay-what-you-can meal can choose between three different meal options: a roasted chicken thigh served with grilled vegetables with rice and lemon butter, roasted seasonal vegetables served with cavatappi pasta in a white wine and cream sauce, or noodles tossed with either a cheese sauce, butter and Parmesan, or served with grilled veggies. Heide said customers can also have vegan, vegetarian, or gluten-free versions of each meal.
“Everything is made from scratch,” Heide said. “We ended up selling over 1,400 pay-what-you-can dishes over the course of a month.”
The Lunchbox Cafe
100 North Hamilton St., Madison
Many of the Madison Children’s Museum’s principles focus on serving the local community, so when space opened on the museum’s first floor for a cafe, the museum decided to open the Lunchbox Cafe, a pay-what-you-can dining option for museum patrons.
“The Lunchbox Cafe had been the brainchild of museum leadership for a couple of years,” McLaughlin said. “There was always this thought to have a free or accessible cafe.”
During the pandemic, the museum took the opportunity while it was closed down to remodel space that was previously occupied by a for-profit cafe, and The Lunchbox Cafe opened in 2021.
“You can’t play when you have an empty stomach,” McLaughlin said. “There is a need to feed your child, so they can keep playing, and keep having fun, so you can build memories and family time. It’s hard to do that when your child gets hungry.”
The Lunchbox Cafe serves “kid-centered” foods, like chicken tenders, macaroni and cheese, fruit snacks, oranges, and apples. McLaughlin said that the museum also works with locally-based caterers, including Lovely’s, who provide food, including “grown-up fare” to the museum.
“We like to have a little bit of something for everyone,” McLaughlin said.
