On our recent trip to Northern Minnesota, we were driving through Brainerd as I was trying to remember some of the town from trips my family would take to Lake of the Woods when I was a young boy. Unfortunately, I didn't remember much of anything while driving through Brainerd. It was getting close to lunch time and my wife has to have three-squares a day. Knowing this and figuring that there were restaurants in the immediate area, I started to calculate where we may stop. While driving through Baxter, the "twin" city to Brainerd, we saw a billboard touting a restaurant on Gull Lake. I punched the name into the GPS and it came up right away - Ernie's on Gull. We're always up for lakeside dining, so we decided to head there for lunch.
The spot where Ernie's stands has been there since 1917 when a Finnish immigrant by the name of Ernie Ritari opened a small fishing resort on what was known as Squaw Point on Gull Lake - the largest of the 7 Gull Lakes in Minnesota. Ernie's wife Edna worked in the bar and was the housekeeper for the small cabins that were part of the resort. Ernie - who was a carpenter by trade - had left Finland in the late 1800's as a small child with his parents and siblings. But he harbored a deep resentment for the Russians who were casting a pall of influence over relatives still living in Finland after the Bolshevik Revolution in the fall of 1917. His disdain for the Russians ran so deep that he never allowed vodka to be on the grounds of his resort.
Ernie and Edna ran the resort for a number of years before retiring in the 1960's. From there, the resort changed hands when Ron Niemann bought the place and called it Ron's on Squaw Point. When he shut down the resort and kept the bar, restaurant and marina, he changed the name to Ron's Steak House. Ron Niemann eventually sold out to a person who renamed the place The Butcher Block. But by the turn of the 21st century, the Butcher Block was no more.
A group of private investors came in to resurrect the bar/restaurant/marina and called it Ernie's on Gull as a nod to original owner Ernie Ritari. That group ran the place for 11 years before two brothers and a friend came into the picture who were interested in buying Ernie's.
The brothers - Chris and Mike Foy - had grown up in Brainerd and were high school football stars in the late 1990's/early 2000's. Like many people who had lived in the area, they frequented Ron's Steak House with their parents and younger brother while growing up. The opportunity to buy Ernie's on Gull came about and with a friend, Zac Swarthout, the group purchased the restaurant/bar/marina in August of 2011. The Foy brothers eventually bought out Swarthout's interest in the place in January of 2015 and they continue to run Ernie's on Gull to this day. In addition to Ernie's, the Foy's also run the Main Street Ale House in nearby Nisswa. They opened that upscale bar and grill in the spring of 2018.
Ernie's on Gull is definitely off the beaten path and without a GPS we probably would have had a little trouble finding the place. It's located in an area that the locals call East Gull Lake. We pulled into the parking lot a little after noon on an unseasonably cool day in north central Minnesota. (see map)
We found what turned out to be a nice northwoods supper club with dark pine paneling on the outside of the building. There was a patio that faced the lake and it was filling up fast with noontime diners. Off to the side of Ernie's was another building that housed the On Point Burger Company, a pseudo-burger shack which opened earlier this spring that offered counter ordering for boaters coming off the lake. It was closed the day we were there and I'm guessing that it's only opened on weekends and holidays.
The view from the outdoor patio was very nice with the lake spread out to the north. The only problem was that it was in the mid-60's, my wife and I were in shorts and short-sleeved shirts, and the wind was whipping across the lake from the north. Outside dining may have been popular with people who were wearing jeans and light jackets, but we were going to be eating inside. Had it been about 10 degrees warmer and with less wind, we would have definitely wanted to sit on the patio to have lunch.
Inside Ernie's, we found an open area that had a small bar off to the corner. Pine wood accents were prominent throughout what was more of a lounge area with a few high-top tables. A young lady greeted us and asked if we wanted inside or outside dining. We told her that we thought we'd like to sit inside.
She took us to another room off the lounge area that turned out to be a more spacious room with low ceilings. We took a booth by the window that looked out over the lake. Now, I have to say that not only was it cool outside, it was cool inside. They had the air conditioner cranked like no other for such a cool day outside. My wife had to go back out and get a sweater out of the car because she was freezing. I can tolerate some coldness, but even I thought it was sort of cold in there.
We were given a couple menus and it wasn't long before our server Lauren showed up to take drink orders. They had Kona Big Wave on tap and, of course, I signed up for one of those. My wife ordered up a Summit Extra Pale Ale. She ran off to get our beers while we took a look at the menu.
It wasn't a long menu at Ernie's on Gull, which sort of made me feel better. Too many times a restaurant tries to do so many things that the food is all right, but generally not good. The bulk of the menu you could get all day long. They had a handful of entrees - such as a peppercorn-encrusted ribeye, an almond-crusted walleye, and shrimp & sausage gumbo - that were only available after 5 p.m. Actually, the shrimp & sausage gumbo sounded pretty good to me, given how cold it was in the dining room.
For the most part, they had burgers, sandwiches, salads, and a choice of short rib, shrimp or smoked pork tacos. Crab cakes, seared ahi tuna, Korean-beef nachos, and roasted Brussels sprouts were part of a pretty interesting mix of appetizers. And Ernie's also offered their "seafood buckets" that could be shared for appetizers or as a meal. Peel-'n-eat shrimp, fried calamari, Prince Edward Island mussels, and fried shrimp were the choices for the seafood buckets.
Since the gumbo wasn't a possibility for lunch, I focused on the sandwich selection that included a reuben, a pastrami on rye with muenster cheese, a smoked pork Cuban sandwich, and a gyro that featured prime rib in a pita wrap. The burgers all sounded pretty good too as they got their beef from local purveyors. But there was something on the special board as we walked in that caught my eye that I wanted to try before having a sandwich.
They had a wild mushroom and beef soup the day we were there. That just sounded good to me, especially for how cold it was in the restaurant. It featured large chunks of wild mushrooms with tender small cubes of beef mixed into a creamy broth. It was very rich and hearty, and it helped warm me up a bit.
My wife followed suit as she saw that they had a lobster bisque on the menu. She was planning on eating light and thought she would get the full bowl of the bisque. The lobster bisque was very rich and about halfway through my wife was regretting her choice of getting a bowl rather than a cup. She offered me a few bites to help her out and it was very good. Actually, I didn't know what I liked better - my wild mushroom and beef soup, or the lobster bisque. Both were a great start to our lunch.
My wife ended up the small Caesar salad with some grilled chicken. When Lauren brought the salad plate to the table, my wife exclaimed, "Oh, my gosh! I'm glad I got the small Caesar salad!" It was a pretty sizable plate filled with chopped romaine lettuce, red onions, cherry tomatoes and croutons. A thin grilled chicken breast came on the side. She was almost so full from the lobster bisque that she said she would do her best to eat it. She must have liked it as she made a sizable dent in the salad and grilled chicken.
I hemmed and hawed about getting a sandwich or a burger - I almost pulled the trigger on the pastrami on rye - but I ordered the truffle mushroom and Swiss cheese burger. I also got some bacon to go on the burger, as well. It featured the same wild mushrooms as I had in my wild mushroom soup along with a truffle and thyme aioli. Kettle chips normally come with the burgers and sandwiches, but I upgraded to sea salt fries for a buck and a half more.
My burger was good, above average in taste and quality, but not outstanding. The wild mushrooms had a nice earthy taste and everything that was on it - Swiss cheese, bacon and the aioli sauce - worked very well together. I was asked if I would like it "pink or no pink" and I asked for it pink. I'm a little leery when restaurants do that because my idea of pink sometimes doesn't jibe with the cooks. But this burger was cooked perfectly with a pink middle, but not too rare where it was too loose. It was a multi-napkin burger, the kind I like.
For taking a chance on a place that we saw an advertisement for on a roadside billboard, I'd have to say that Ernie's on Gull turned out all right. It was a nice place - albeit too cold for how we were dressed in normal summer attire - right on a lake with great views. My burger and the wild mushroom and beef soup I had were both good - I liked the soup a little more than the burger, though. My wife was more than happy with her rich and filling lobster bisque along with her Caesar and grilled chicken salad that she couldn't finish. Ernie's was a nice place with a northwoods vibe. And the service we had was friendly and prompt. It's easy to see why it has been a popular spot with locals and vacationers for years and years.
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