I really want to like Mars Cheese Castle in Kenosha. It has such a great name and a great sign that’s visible from 1-94, making it seem like heaven for lovers of kitsch and cheese.

Unfortunately, every time I go into the place, which is about once a year -- including yesterday afternoon -- I’m disappointed.

I want to like this place so much that I feel slightly sacrilegious writing this. I would love to categorize the Mars Cheese Castle with all the other awesome, quirky establishments that make this state so great, like Koz’s Mini Bowl and Dr. Evermore’s Scrap Metal Park, but I can’t. Here’s why:

1.  Too much crap, not enough cheese. The place has such an odd mix of things, from bad knickknacks to way too much candy to overpriced, super-fruity wines, but not enough cheese to honor its name. In my opinion, any place that’s dubbed a “cheese castle” should be one big, churning cheese emporium with voluptuous women in braids and checkered frocks handing out hunks, curds, slices, shreds, slabs and wheels in every hue of yellow and orange. OK, that sounds a little scary, like a Swiss Colony on steroids, but only a small portion of the space is actually filled with cheese and that seems wrong.

2.  Sub-par food. I don’t understand the restaurant. The café is basically a corridor squished between the other departments with bad lighting and four tables pushed too closely together. And why is the menu so cheese challenged, with the sole cheese item -- the cheese sandwich -- listed fifth or sixth on the menu? Why isn’t the menu loaded with mozzarella marinara, cheese subs, cheese dogs, mac ‘n’ cheese, etc? For the love of Gouda, why isn’t anything on that menu cheesy and deep-fried? I ordered a turkey and cheese sandwich that had a fat stack of meat, a massive slather of mayo and one measly slice of cheese. I ask you: cheese castle or cheese hovel?

3.  Not kid-friendly. We stopped at the Cheese Castle after touring the Jelly Belly warehouse in Pleasant Prairie. I thought we should introduce the kids to the place, still thinking that, in some way, it was a right of passage, a coming-of-age experience that all Wisconsinites must have before adulthood. Unfortunately, we were greeted with a sign taped next to the register reading “Well-behaved children are welcome at the Cheese Castle like well-behaved people.” This bothers me. It suggests kids aren’t people, and that they are usually not well behaved. Anyway, I could have easily blown off that sign if I didn’t feel like the other diners were slightly annoyed by the presence of little people.

4. Cubs paraphernalia. The Chicago Cubs sign -- displayed front and center at the counter -- nearly made me take our so-so sandwiches to go. This is a cheese castle located in the Dairy State, and they can’t cough up a single Brew Crew bobblehead or Packers pom-pon?

It's worth stopping at the Mars Cheese Castle to snap a photo (the sign is a classic), but, sadly, that's about it.