During our summer vacation in the Glacier Lakes region of West Central Minnesota, we stayed in the small town of Spicer located on Green Lake, a 5400 acre lake that was clear and pristine. There weren't a lot of food options in the area for us, but there was one place that I was somewhat familiar with. They had a Zorbaz in Spicer on the lakefront that was walking distance from our hotel. One evening, my wife and I walked over there for drinks and dinner.
I had been to the original Zorbaz in Detroit Lakes, MN a number of years ago with one of my accounts from Fargo. (Click here to see that Road Tips entry. It's from over 11 years ago before I had a camera on my phone to take pictures of the place. Plus it's sort of a cheesy post as I replaced all the "s" letters in the text to "z's" as Zorbaz does pretty much the same in all of their literature and menus.) The one in Detroit Lakes was the first one of what ended up to eventually be 11 Zorbaz locations around Minnesota.
Tom Hanson grew up in Detroit Lakes and graduated from high school there in 1963. After graduating with honors from the University of Minnesota-Moorhead, he ended up back in Detroit Lakes as a drama teacher and debate coach. During the summers, he played a lot of golf, but decided that he needed a little side income, too. Newly married in 1969, Hanson bought a little candy shop on the shore of Detroit Lake and turned it into Zorbaz at the Beach, named after one of Hanson's favorite movies Zorba the Greek.
Pictured right - Tom Hanson. Picture courtesy Forum News Service.
At first, Hanson and his wife, Terri Jo, had Zorbaz open only in the summer months selling frozen pizzas with Grain Belt beer on tap. But Zorbaz at the Beach caught on enough that he quit his teaching and coaching jobs in 1973 to concentrate on Zorbaz in the summer, while going out to Southern California to work in restaurants there in the winter months.
It was in California where he met Rick Jansen who was a cook at one of the seasonal restaurants Hanson had in the mid-70's. Jansen showed Hanson how to properly make pizzas from scratch using only fresh ingredients. And Jansen learned how to cook some Mexican foods from some of the Hispanic cooks who worked with him in the kitchen. It also turned out that Jansen and Hanson had a mutual interest in cars, especially antique and performance vehicles. Hanson was so impressed with Jansen that he made him a partner in Zorbaz back in Detroit Lakes.
It was in the late 70's when Zorbaz started with the whimsical "z" replacing the "s" in everything they published. Now a year round venture, Zorbaz at the Beach became a popular place. Hanson and Jansen knew they had to expand and that opportunity came up in 1983 when they bought the former Babe's Resort on Little Pine Lake in Perham, MN and opened the second Zorbaz. As Zorbaz added more locations, they focused on areas that were in smaller towns that had a high tourist count in Northern Minnesota, mainly on or near lakefronts. The number of Zorbaz eventually grew to 14, but not all of them were successful. Actually, three of the Zorbaz locations - each of which were not on lake shores - closed down due to the lack of business.
The Zorbaz in Spicer came on line in the spring of 2012. It was housed in the former Melvin's on the Lake, a supper club owned by Dave and Mary Baker who ran the place for nine years. Melvin's had a sort of up and down existence with the Baker's who were having problems making a profit with the restaurant before they instituted a series of measures - including cutting down on winter hours and coming up with a series of operation efficiencies - that brought the restaurant back into the black. However, they were looking to sell Melvin's so they could concentrate on their other properties that included a hotel, an office building and other restaurants. Zorbaz made them an offer and the deal was struck in late 2011. The Zorbaz-Green Lake would be the 10th one with the 11th Zorbaz opening in Alexandria, MN in 2014.
Tom Hanson continued to be the center of all the Zorbaz locations, affectionately known as "Jumbo" to his friends and employees, not only because he was 6'6" in height, but because of the large fun times he always had. Unfortunately, Tom Hanson - a man who never smoked in his life - was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2006. He fought the battle for nine years before finally passing in 2015 at the age of 70. Once he was diagnosed with cancer, Hanson gave up the day-to-day operations of the Zorbaz locations - along with four other lakeside restaurant/supper clubs his Lake Life Hospitality Group had purchased over the years - to his son Cole who continues to run Zorbaz which celebrated its 50th anniversary this year.
It was a short walk from our hotel to Zorbaz on Green Lake in Spicer. (see map) The large parking lot in front was, maybe, 25% full when we walked up to the place around 6:30 p.m. Since it was the middle of the week - and Spicer isn't really a tourist destination until the weekend - there were a handful of locals in the place and at least two vacationers. The dining room was an open area with a number of tables that would seat as many as 12 or as few as 4.
The bar area featured some flat screen televisions behind the bar. We were greeted by one of the bartenders, a young lady whose attitude was about as neutral as can be - no outgoing effervescence, nor was she surly. I would have to say she was pretty impersonal. I asked her if she could make a mai tai and she sort of said, "Yeah, sure. OK." My wife got a margarita made with top shelf tequila. Even though she had the personality of a wet rag, the young lady could sure make a good mai tai and margarita. They also had a pretty extensive beer list that featured craft beers, domestics and imports. They had Kona Big Wave on the beer menu, but as long as she kept making the mai tais the same way as the first one I had, I knew I wouldn't be ordering a beer that evening.
The menu at Zorbaz featured the two things they're famous for - pizza and Mexican food. They also had wings and salads on the menu, but that was about it. They had a number of different varieties of pizzas and Mexican food items including enchiladas, tacos and burritos. We weren't exactly certain what we wanted to eat - we sort of went in there with pizza on our minds, but my wife decided that she wanted some chips and salsa with a side of guacamole. The chips were pretty basic and the guac and salsa came in small plastic cups. It wasn't outstanding, but it wasn't all that bad, either.
One thing that I noticed they had on the menu was Southwestern-style green pork chili. I thought I wanted to give that a try along with getting a small pizza. Food orders are taken at the bar and the same emotionless and disinterested young lady who was making the killer mai tais and margaritas for us took our order. Well, our pizza made it out to us, but the green pork chili did not. I went up to the girl at the bar and told her that I didn't get the chili. "You've got to be kidding me," she replied in a caustic manner. She went over to the order screen and said, "I put it in!" I said, well, I never got it. I went back to sit down and it was about three minutes later when a young guy from back in the kitchen brought the chili out to me.
It was sort of worth the wait as the green pork chili was very good. It featured melted shredded cheese on top with chunks of pork and green chiles in a nice peppery base. It was as good as any green pork chili that I've had in my travels to Colorado.
We got a small sausage, pepperoni, mushroom and jalapeño pizza. (My wife likes a little bit of a spicy bite on her pizza.) The pizzas at Zorbaz are thin crust with a sturdy crust. The pizza sauce was a bit too sweet for my taste, but it was still a pretty good pizza. I remembered the pizza as being pretty good from my first visit to the Zorbaz in Detroit Lakes over 10 years prior.
After dinner, we both grabbed a couple more drinks and headed out to the patio area that overlooks Green Lake. The patio area featured a number of picnic tables, as well as a like number of regular tables and chairs. It was a beautiful evening and we headed out to a bench near the dock area next to Zorbaz to enjoy the scenery and laid back atmosphere on the patio.
Zorbaz is also known for their merchandise and they had a large area off the dining area that featured t-shirts, sweatshirts, hats, coozies, and other different types of tchotchkes that were available. My wife was interested in getting one of the t-shirts, but there wasn't anyone in the merchandise area. She went up to the disinterested bartender and asked her if anyone was available to sell her a shirt. The girl just sort of sneered and said, "I can take care of you up here. Just go get what you want and bring it up to me."
She was very cold in her tone toward my wife, so much so that my wife turned back to me and said, "Forget it. I don't need a shirt that bad." I offered to take her back a day or two later during the day to get a shirt and she declined. "I just have a bad taste in my mouth the way that bartender acted toward us when we were there," she said. My wife usually tries to see the best in people, but she didn't see anything good with our bartender that day.
The somewhat indifferent and impersonal bartender notwithstanding, I think we enjoyed most of our visit to Zorbaz. The food is fine - we thought the pizza was good, but the chips with salsa and guacamole were pretty basic. The green pork chili was actually very good - as good as some of the ones I've had out in Colorado. And even though she didn't have much of a personality, our bartender made some very good mai tais and margaritas. I had four mai tais that evening, but since all I had to do was stumble and zig-zag back to our hotel, that was fine with my wife. Don't expect fine dining at any one of the 11 Zorbaz in Northern Minnesota. But do expect to have some fun - even if your bartender isn't having any fun.
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