Hey there! Glad you could make it. Pull up a chair, slide into a corner booth, and check out the menu – you’re about to be treated to something delicious: the 16th installment of Volume One’s Best of the Chippewa Valley Reader Poll. We’re celebrating our Sweet 16 with some retro vibes, as you can tell from the cover and the illustrations throughout the magazine.

And like the All-American diners we’re evoking, you’ll find almost everything you can imagine on this menu. The whole thing begins – appropriately enough – with the Best Appetizer, and takes you through multiple courses of local cuisine, nightlife, culture, media, arts, recreation, business, and so much more. If you can’t sample it all at once, don’t worry; every year, we prepare this Best Of issue to honor the best things around as well as to give you a go-to guide when you’re wondering where to find the best tacos, which local authors to check out, or where you can get a good deal on a used car. You don’t need to tell us that it’s an almost-overwhelming array of results – we know, we had to compile it all! – but we’ve divided it into helpful segments so you can zero in on what you’re looking for. (You can also find the results online at volumeone.org/bestof.)

Like the 15 polls that came before it, this year’s poll is a snapshot, a time capsule of the Valley’s likes (and even a few of our dislikes). In a year – or five – we may look back on some of our choices with nostalgia or befuddlement. Nevertheless, this is a moment we want to recognize – a milestone in our community’s history, as we all turn the page on a difficult few years and find ourselves on the precipice of something new, the beginning of the future.

The beauty of the poll is that our opinions evolve. Things change. Every day, the Chippewa Valley becomes a better place to live through the voices and votes of those who live here and the ways we support each other.

The beauty of the poll is that our opinions evolve. Things change. Every day, the Chippewa Valley becomes a better place to live through the voices and votes of those who live here and the ways we support each other. Ultimately, great restaurants and shops and parks alone aren’t the reason this is a great place to live: It’s the people who populate those places and try to make the Valley even better.

In these pages, we’ve set aside the bulk of our regular editorial content – covering all the latest news, culture, food and drink, and other Chippewa Valley happenings – in order to get these poll results out there in print. With 370 questions, 8,823 options, and a record 16,136 voters – more people than vote in some city elections! – this is our biggest poll ever. A whopping total of 193,666 votes were cast. A grand total of nearly 49,000 people have voted in one or more of our polls over the past decade. Even more amazing: Some categories have had the same winner for every. Single. Year. (Turn the page to marvel at the perennial champs who make up our Best of Hall of Fame.)

So to the more than 16,000 voters who took time to give their opinions: Thank you for letting your community know what you think. Because, really, what’s the use of having a best burger without anyone to drop into the diner to eat it? We hope the results of this poll provide the opportunity for you to try something new – or start something new! We should all strive to celebrate the things we have and work toward creating the things we don’t. That’s how people – and places – grow.

So without further ado, here are the winners of our 2023 Best of the Chippewa Valley Reader Poll: the people and places in our community who are working together to cook up a better future.