At the Table: Good times, fun food at Milton's Wind Chill Factory

My niece, Ann Marie, alerted me to the Wind Chill Factory & Mini Golf business last summer.

“Most family options in the Saratoga area are expensive,” she explained. “Movie ticket prices are horrendous.”

The Wind Chill Factory is a place families can go and make memories, she said. The mini golf is inexpensive, fun entertainment. There’s a wooden pirate ship kids can climb over and into, and stick their heads out the octagon-shaped portholes. It’s free.

The Wind Chill Factory has plenty of family-friendly appeal. There are lots of outdoor tables, either in the sun or under canopies or on a patio next to to the building. From any table you can watch the miniature golf.

We picked a table in a sunny spot near the pirate ship. It was also within view of busy Geyser Road, where passing garbage trucks provide their own form of entertainment if you are a 3-year-old boy.

Owners Brandon and Keely Whalen were each raised in the food and ice cream industry. Brandon’s father has owned and operated the Ticonderoga location of the Wind Chill Factory, and Keely’s parents owned a roadside food and ice cream business in Crown Point. This is their third season.

The 18-hole mini-golf course is full of interesting diversions: a water wheel, a waterfall, bridges, doglegs. It all looks fresh and neatly landscaped, and it’s open every day of the season.

A glance through Wind Chill’s Facebook page shows past imaginative sundae combinations. Maple bacon or Fruity Pebbles, anyone? They give trophies at weekly drive-in car shows and have lawn games such as cornhole on the expansive grass area. Every week, Wind Chill gives away an ice cream sundae cake.

The menu is what you’d expect, with family-friendly pricing. There’s soft ice cream ($2.99 for baby-sized cone to $6.10 for large), hard ice cream ($4.15 for one scoop). Extras like sprinkles, cotton candy crunch, cookie crumbles, are $0.99.

A milkshake is $6.65; a banana split with a whole banana and the works is $9.95. There are smoothies and flurries and ice cream for your dog.

A burger is $6.80; a veggie burger is the same price. Michigan hot dogs, popular in the Plattsburgh area, are served with meaty sauce ($4.35). Have a pulled pork sandwich ($9.75, with coleslaw), fish and chips ($16.95) or a grilled chicken sandwich ($9.75).

You can get a fresh garden salad with grilled chicken breast ($10.35 small, $15.35 large). Try the Caesar salad with chicken for the same price.

The children's menu has four choices: hot dog, grilled cheese, burger or chicken fingers ($7.95 or $8.95). Fries start at $4.99.

You put in your order and pay at one of the front windows of the cheerful red-and-white building. All the young employees were patient and friendly. They assign you a number; someone will call out your number when the food is ready. Pick it up at the side window, where you’ll find napkins, cutlery, ketchup and whatever you need.

Food comes in a paper boat or plastic basket lined with cheerful red-and-white-checked paper. We started with a New York-style big soft pretzel ($5.50). Add salt if you want and choose from mustard or cheese for dipping.

You can adjust the amount of salt by simply brushing off the excess. Our pretzel was fresh and still warm. We all enjoyed a piece, dipping it into the cheesy stuff.

Ann Marie ordered a kid’s hamburger meal for Anthony ($8.95) that came with a choice of fries and drink. She got him hand-cut fries and a pink lemonade.

But he was more interested in the pirate ship, moving grapefruit-sized rocks from place to place and pointing out airplanes taking off from the airport nearby.

So Ann Marie and I split his burger, which was hand-formed, cooked through and good-tasting. The brioche roll had been buttered and grilled.

The hand-cut fries were excellent, very light and crispy on the outside. It was hard to stop eating them.

Ann Marie enjoyed her crispy Caesar chicken wrap ($10.95). She showed me the browned marks on the outside. “They grill it so it holds together,” she explained.

She likes onion — perhaps not as much as there was here, but the extra was easy to remove.

“I would have liked a little more Caesar dressing,” she said. Thumbs up, though. They’ll give you extra if you want it, I discovered later, so just ask.

She ate my coleslaw and called it sweet, the way we both like it. Wind Chill’s coleslaw has green pepper in it.

I had the special, fish tacos ($13.95). Wind Chill uses hand-breaded cod fillets and homemade mango pineapple salsa. I skipped the house-made Old Bay aioli.

The mango-pineapple salsa tasted terrific, and points to them for the tidy, neatly chopped small pieces of fresh fruit. The fish is served on shredded red cabbage, so you can imagine how pretty that would look, especially with brilliant white cheese crumbled over.

I used a fork to take out the filling. That way I could enjoy the individual parts, like the wonderful salsa. The fish filet was breaded and sliced into chunks. But it had gotten wet, perhaps from the salsa, which took away the crispness. It looked attractive and was neatly constructed, but I didn’t love it all.

We got Anthony a baby vanilla twist cone. The baby size is probably all you’d need to get your ice cream fix. Next size is kiddie; by the time you get to small, that cone is big. He wanted chocolate sprinkles (99 cents extra).

“I like the flavor of the sprinkles,” said Ann Marie. Unlike most sprinkles, these actually tasted like chocolate.

Ann Marie and I shared the special dessert, blueberry cobbler sundae ($8.95), which featured the week’s special flavor. The big cup was filled halfway with blueberry and vanilla twist, topped with their homemade blueberry pie filling and some buttery crunchy bits, more ice cream and topping, and lots of whipped cream.

The sun made the whipped cream runny, so we jumped in with spoons. We both really liked the blueberry filling with its intensely flavored, tiny berries, and the buttery crunchy bits. It was a bit too sweet for me but very tasty.

I liked the blueberry flavor a lot. I wished the vanilla had more flavor. We did a pretty good job on the giant sundae.

The tab for our lunch, including ice cream, came to $58.55 including tax and tip. Wind Chill gives a 5% cash discount.

The Wind Chill Factory is a happy place, bustling with business this early spring sunny day. There were grandmas, couples, workers on their lunch breaks, folks wearing medical office garb.

So grab some kids, or just go yourself, to check out the Wind Chill Factory. Play some mini golf and make some memories.

Wind Chill Factory

WHERE: 3 Trieble Ave., Milton; 518-885-7888; windchillfactory.com

WHEN: 11 a.m to 8 p.m. daily through the end of October

HOW MUCH: $58.55, with ice cream, tax and tip

MORE INFO: Credit cards: Mastercard, Visa, American Express, Discover. Apple Pay. Large parking lot. Bathrooms ADA compliant.

More restaurant reviews from Caroline Lee