During our vacation to the Bemidji area earlier this summer, my wife and I were exploring the environs surrounding the north shore of Lake Bemidji. We happened upon the Bemidji Town & Country Club, a member-driven golf course that is open to the public. We found that they had a restaurant in the place called the North Shore Grille. It was lunch time and my wife was a little peckish, so we decided to stop in and have a bite to eat.
The North Shore Grille is a seasonal restaurant that inhabits the upper floor of the clubhouse at the Bemidji Town & Country Club. The golf course itself is a 4-star rated course by Golf Digest and was founded in 1916. The course went through a major renovation including a new clubhouse and restaurant facility in 1990 and has hosted a number of amateur state tournaments over the years including The Birchmont, a six-day men's and women's qualifying tournament that just celebrated its 96th year. It is also the home course for the Bemidji State men's and women's gold teams.
We had just driven through the nearby Lake Bemidji State Park before heading back to the golf course to get some lunch. (see map) The lot was nearly full as it was a beautiful day and there were a lot of golfers on the course and a handful of people were enjoying lunch on the outside deck.
Inside the North Shore Grille was a bar area and a larger dining area off to the side. A large stone-faced fireplace was the focal point of the dining room which had a number of windows that looked out onto Lake Bemidji. A couple smaller rooms were off to the side of the dining room that could be used for private dining or meeting rooms.
Since it was a beautiful day, we opted to take a seat out on the deck. There was a nice view of the lake just across the road with the city of Bemidji visible across the water in the distance.
The golf course looked lush, as did most of Northern Minnesota when we were there. They had gotten an appreciable amount of precipitation through the summer keeping everything green. Compared to the drought we were going through in Iowa that made lawns and pastures look distressed at that time, the landscape around Bemidji was a deep and vibrant green.
Since it's primarily a seasonal restaurant with varied hours during the non-golf season, North Shore Grille hires a number of high school and college workers for the summer months. Our server that day was a young lady by the name of Tarin who brought us out a couple menus. My wife ordered her usual Tito's and cranberry juice while I got a glass of the pale ale they had on tap.
The lunch menu featured the normal fare - sandwiches, soups, salads, and burgers. They had a smoked turkey and ham panini-style club sandwich, as well as a sandwich wrap with smoked salmon, smoked turkey and bacon. My wife took notice of the shrimp and basil sandwich that was served open faced on top of onion naan bread.
She started out with the shrimp and asparagus soup - chopped asparagus mixed with plump chopped shrimp in a hearty tomato/beef broth. My wife thought it was very good and made short work of the cup of soup.
For the salad, she went with the Grains, Seeds and Nuts salad - rice, toasted walnuts and sunflower seeds, roasted edamame with mixed greens all topped with a vinaigrette dressing. She got the petite size salad and she thought it was huge. "I'm glad I didn't get the full salad," she said as she was looking it over before she dug in. It was nice and light for her, and she was happy she got it since we'd been eating some heavy dinners during our trip.
I thought about getting a burger, but decided that I wasn't all that hungry, either. I went with the prime rib sandwich - shaved prime rib (they serve prime rib on the weekends at the North Shore Grille) with bacon, cheddar cheese, sliced tomatoes, and a basil mayo sauce on grilled Texas Toast. Crinkle cut fries came on the side with a bowl of au jus. It was a good sandwich. It wasn't all that filling, but it was more than enough to tide me over until we had dinner that evening. The prime rib was tender and the au jus wasn't all that salty like au jus can be at times. The fries were basically throw-aways, but the sandwich was very good.
It was a nice lunch at the North Shore Grille. The service was adequate, prices were reasonable, the view from the deck was very nice, and it was a good place to have a light lunch on the north shore of Lake Bemidji. It pretty much met our expectations as it wasn't anything fancy or pretentious, but it wasn't tired or rundown either. It seemed to be a popular place to dine and we weren't disappointed with our visit in the least.
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