Road Tips

Krewe - St. Joseph, MN

When I was in St. Joseph, MN, a small community outside of St. Cloud, earlier this year, I ended up going to Bad Habit Brewing Company to check that place out on the advice of one of the guys who worked at my account in St. Cloud.  (Click here to read about my visit to Bad Habit Brewing.)  I was sort of surprised that literally across the street from Bad Habit Brewing was a New Orleans-inspired restaurant by the name of Krewe.  After finishing up at Bad Habit, I ventured across the street to Krewe to have dinner.  

It turned out that I was somewhat familiar with the owners of Krewe - they had been the owners of Model Citizen, a small restaurant that was formerly in Goat Ridge Brewing in New London, MN, a great little brewery that my wife and I fell in love with during our vacation in the Spicer/New London area a couple years ago.  Mateo Mackbee and Erin Rae Lucas met when he was a chef and she was a server at the now-closed Mozza Mia in the Minneapolis suburb of Edina.  While Lucas was a trained pastry chef, Mackbee grew up in a household with family recipes of Cajun and Creole food passed down to his Louisiana-born mother.  In the summers, Mackbee would go to New Orleans and help his grandfather who was a chef in a restaurant where the young Mackbee would learn more trade secrets from him.  

Looking for a change in scenery, Mackbee and Lucas had the opportunity to move to rural west-central Minnesota and open Model Citizen, a restaurant that relied upon locally-grown foods.  (Click here to see the Road Tips entry on Model Citizen and Goat Ridge Brewing Company.)   Even the shrimp Mackbee used in some of his Creole-inspired dishes came from a former cattle farm in the area. Mackbee, a black man in an overwhelmingly white area of Minnesota, had faced some racial issues with some of the locals while in New London, but he was able to work through the problems and Model Citizen gained a loyal following.

Pictured right - Erin Lucas and Mateo Mackbee.  Photo courtesy New York Times.

One of their fans was a St. Joseph real estate agent/developer by the name of Jon Petters.  Petters was in the process of building a new mixed use residential/commerical building in downtown St. Joseph - 24 North Lofts - and he had a space that he wanted Lucas and Mackbee to fill.  Lucas had put her culinary degree as a pastry chef to use while in New London and the couple wanted to have a Cajun/Creole restaurant and a bakery as part of their new venture.  Petters was able to get them a space next to the restaurant space he had in mind for the couple.  Lucas opened Flour and Flower, a Scandinavian-style bakery and coffee house - in February of 2020.  The pandemic hit just before the couple was going to open their restaurant, but they were finally able to open the door to Krewe in late May 2020.  

On the logo for Krewe, it shows that the restaurant was established in 1944.  Mackbee explained in an article in the New York Times that it was more of a tribute to his mother, a long-time Twin Cities educator, who was born in 1944 and who still oversees some of the food recipes Mackbee uses in his restaurant.  (Mackbee's father was former Minnesota Vikings linebacker Earsell Mackbee.)  

Krewe occupies the prime location in 24 North Lofts along College Avenue N. in downtown St. Joseph.  (see map)  Parking for the restaurant is available on College Ave. and other side streets near Krewe.  I had parked in the lot behind Bad Habit Brewing and walked out the front door of the brewery and across the street to Krewe.   

The interior of Krewe featured a contemporary design with bold colored walls.  The building faced the west so a lot of late afternoon light filled the dining room.  The open kitchen was fronted by a raw bar with oysters on ice in front of the seating area.  The dining room was filled with Zydeco music from New Orleans giving it a true Crescent City feeling.  

The three-sided bar featured colorful ceramic tiles on the face.  A single television sat on the wall of the back bar.  They had three bartenders working that evening and I ended up taking a seat in the center of the bar.   I looked to my left and Mateo Mackbee was seated at the corner talking with a patron.  I doubted he would have remembered me from our earlier visits to Model Citizen in New London.  

The bartender who waited on me that evening was Jack, a jovial and outgoing kind of guy.  He gave me a food menu and asked me what I wanted to drink.  They had a number of local craft beers on tap including beers from Modist, Fair State Co-op, Excelsior and Beaver Island Brewing Co.  They even had Hamm's on tap!  Their beverage menu featured a lot of wines to choose from, but I did notice that they had Kona Big Wave available in bottles.  I asked Jack to get me one of those.  

The menu at Krewe wasn't all that long, but it was more than what Mackbee and Lucas offered at Model Citizen.  In addition to oysters on the half-shell, Krewe offered appetizers such as hushpuppies, crab cakes, and boudin lumpia - Creole-seasoned braised pork with rice and in a rice paper wrapper.  Items such as crawfish étouffée, Creole mussels, and barbecued shrimp were available either as a main entree or a shared dish.  Also available as a shared entree was a 22 ounce ribeye, a smoked - then grilled - half chicken served with an Alabama white barbecue sauce, and a whole grilled fish with marinated onions and peppers all served with a roasted red pepper chimichurri.

The main entrees included a number of Louisiana favorites - smothered catfish, a thick-cut pork chop with onion gravy, red beans and rice, and a house gumbo that was made from a recipe Mackbee got handed down from his grandfather.  The smoked and seared duck breast with scallion pancakes also interested me.  

But in the end, I went with the shrimp jambalaya.  I'd had Mackbee's jambalaya during one of our visits to Model Citizen a couple three years ago.  It was true jambalaya made with the holy trinity of onions, celery and bell peppers in a tomato broth with a generous portion of shrimp mixed in with andouille sausage, chunks of chicken breast, ham and finish with a dollop of jasmine rice.  It was just as good as I remembered from Model Citizen.  It was a hearty meal, had a bit of a spicy bite to it, and the overall flavor was outstanding.   The jambalaya was a bit salty for my taste, but that wasn't a deal breaker.  The jambalaya at Krewe was more than worthy of any Cajun or Creole restaurant I've been in over the years.  

Krewe is one of those places that seems sort of out of place in a small college town in the middle of Minnesota.  And Mateo Mackbee's and Erin Lucas' back story of how they got to this place in their life is quite interesting.  The jambalaya I had was very good and Mackbee acquits himself quite well as a Cajan/Creole chef in the middle of the heartland.  From the comfortable atmosphere with Zydeco music playing in the background to the friendly and prompt service to the authentic New Orleans-style food, Krewe is certainly a great destination for good food.  I can only hope they're able to maintain the clientele to keep them going for years to come.  But with their food, it shouldn't be hard.

Bad Habit Brewing Company - St. Joseph, MN

Up in St. Cloud, MN this past summer, I ventured out to the nearby town of St. Joseph to check out a microbrewery that one of the guys from my local account was telling me about.  He said the place had been open for awhile and had moved to a larger building a couple years ago, but he told me that it never occurred to him to let me know about it.  "It's a great place," he said enthusiastically.  "And their beers are pretty good."  It was a short 10 minute drive from my account to Bad Habit Brewing Company in St. Joseph.  

Aaron Rieland got his first home brewing kit not long after he turned 21 years old.  Rieland and some friends decided to brew some beer and they went around and gathered up bottles to put the beer in.  After topping off and capping the bottles, Rieland put them in a basement closet to ferment.  However, the gas build-up during the fermenting process literally blew up each one of the bottles making quite the mess in his home.  Learning his lesson on fermenting on the first batch, he tried a second batch.  The beers didn't quite turn out to taste as good as Rieland thought they should have.  He ended up pouring out that batch.  Discouraged, Rieland put away his home-brewing kit and basically forgot about it.

11 years later while Aaron was cleaning out his garage, he stumbled upon the beer-making kit and it rekindled his interest in home-brewing.  Now in his early 30's, he was better educated in the beer-making process and some of his early beers turned out to be pretty darn good.  Along with his buddy, Eric Geier, they started to brew beers together in Rieland's garage.  They did it so much that Rieland's family called his renewed hobby his "bad habit".  

Of course like many home-brewers who eventually mastered the art, Rieland thought he had something good in his recipes.  He began to kick around the idea of opening his own brewery.  He started to look into costs and operating expenses, then Rieland began to look for a building in St. Cloud.  It looked like something favorable for his brewery was available, but the deal eventually fell through.  

Pictured right - Aaron Rieland with his wife Karen.  Contributed photo courtesy The Newsleaders.com

Somewhat crestfallen, Rieland started to look around at spaces in St. Joseph, just a 10 minute drive from his home in Avon, MN.  A small space was found in a building along E. Minnesota St. in downtown St. Joseph.  The lease was signed in May of 2015 and with the help of friends and family, Rieland transformed the building into a microbrewery in less than six months.  By the summer of 2015, Rieland and Geier started to brew their first beers.  And on Halloween Day in 2015, Bad Habit Brewing Company opened to a standing room only crowd.  Lines formed out the door waiting to get into the first brewery in St. Joseph in over 100 years.

Bad Habit Brewing became a destination brewery for many beer enthusiasts.  But the space was too small and there were times people just walked away from Bad Habit Brewing because there wasn't any room to sit or stand. Rieland came to the realization that he would have to find a bigger building if he was going to keep up with the demands of his customers.  Just around the corner on College Ave., Rieland found his new space.

The St. Joseph City Hall had been housed in what originally was a bank for a number of years.  With a growing community, the city had outgrown the space they had been in since 2000 and they eventually built a new and larger facility which they moved into in 2017.   In the summer of 2018, Rieland made a deal to take over the building.  The space would allow him to more than double his capacity inside the brewery to 140 patrons.  And the large beer garden at the new location would accommodate 200 people - a ten-fold increase over the size of the beer patio at the original Bad Habit location.  

Not long after he took over the building, they completely gutted the inside and started from scratch.  Bad Habit had seven 5-barrel systems at their original location and the new location had the space to add an additional 5-barrel system and two 10-barrel systems increasing their capacity from about 700 barrels annually to over 1000 barrels a year.  The original bank vault was still in the building, so they fashioned it into a large walk-in cooler.  They put modern metal fabrication on the outside of the building to give it a more modern look.  

Bad Habit closed their original location in late April of 2019 to move equipment from the old location to the new location.  The new and larger Bad Habit Brewing Company opened in early May of that year and the beer garden opened soon thereafter.

One of the great things about Bad Habit Brewing is that they also inherited a parking lot.  And I used that parking lot when I found the place at 25 College Ave. N in St. Joseph.  (see map)  Bad Habit is a taproom only and the evening I visited a food truck was set up in what was the old drive-up window lane for the bank - ODB's Meat and Greet, a barbecue food truck run by a former lady professional wrestler.  (Had I not discovered a New Orleans-inspired restaurant across the street from Bad Habit Brewing, I probably would have given it a shot.)  

The interior of Bad Habit was sort of a modern industrial design.  Exposed trusses and ventilation were above the high-top tables in the bar area.  Natural lighting from skylights, large windows and a garage door that opened onto the patio helped give the tap room a vibrant feeling.  

The outdoor patio/beer garden featured a concrete patio with patio tables with bright red umbrellas.  In fact, I sort of picked up that the main color scheme with Bad Habit Brewing was red with the red picnic tables in the beer garden, the red Adirondack chairs circling a fire pit on the patio, the red corn hole boards in the grass of the beer garden, and the red accents in the tap room.  Strings of Edison lights criss-crossed the patio and a number of gas lamp heaters were situated off to the side to be used when the weather turns cooler.  

I went up to the bar and took a look at some of the beers they had to offer.  The beers were listed on planks attached to the wall in the tap room.  They had a dozen beers on tap that day including a chocolate stout, a light ale, a cherry ale, a lemon radler, and an apricot wheat beer.  Two beers that intrigued me were the Samba Mamba, a seasonal hazy IPA with an A.B.V. of 7.4%; and one of their regular beers, the Habitual American pale ale with an A.B.V. of 5.7%.  The bartender let me try a sample of both beers and while I've been partial to hazy IPA's as of late, I have to say that the Habitual APA literally stomped on the flavor of the Samba Mamba.  It was a great beer, nice and smooth on the front end with nice hoppy finish on the back end.  I ended up having a couple of beers there before heading over across the street for dinner at Krewe.  (Look for an upcoming Road Tips entry on Krewe in the coming weeks.)  

I was very impressed with Bad Habit Brewing Company.  The taproom and beer garden/patio was top-notch, as was the wonderful Habitual American pale ale that I enjoyed while I was there.  There have been a number of brewery/tap rooms that I've encountered over the years, but Bad Habit Brewing Company was one of the more memorable.  Places like Bad Habit make me jealous for the people of St. Cloud/St. Joseph who don't have far to go to enjoy a good beer in a great atmosphere.  

Urban Lodge Brewery and Restaurant - Sauk Rapids, MN

Traveling up to St. Cloud earlier this year, I was on my way to have dinner at the Old Capital Tavern in Sauk Rapids.  On my way there, I passed a brewpub by the name of Urban Lodge Brewery.  I hesitated for a moment before driving on to Old Capital Tavern.  However, Old Capital Tavern happened to be closed that evening and I immediately high-tailed it back to Urban Lodge to try the place out.  

Roy Dodds opened a pizza place in downtown Sauk Rapids - Flying Pig Pizza - in 2012.  But all along, he really wanted to have a brew pub to go along with his pizza place.  That dream came true in the summer of 2016 when Dodds merged his pizza restaurant with his new brewpub concept - Urban Moose Brewery.  Everything was fine for the first couple three months until lawyers from the Moosehead Brewery in Canada sent Dodds a copyright infringement letter regarding the name of his brewery.  Dodds shrugged his shoulders and said it was an honest mistake, fully understanding the confusion it may cause with beer drinkers.  He renamed his brewpub Urban Lodge Brewery in December of last year.  

Urban Lodge's brewmaster, Kevin Clark, studied the art of brewing beer at the Siebel Institute in Chicago after working at a high end restaurant in California where he developed a passion for pairing beers with meals.  He headed back out to California and worked as a head brewer at a brewpub in Monterey for five years before Roy Dodds came calling to head up the brewery at the then Urban Moose.  

The exterior of the building caught my eye as I initially drove by Urban Lodge located along N. Benton Drive in Sauk Rapids.  (see map)  The contemporary facade featured a large grain hopper attached to the front of the building.  Awnings over the windows with walls painted in earth tones stood out against the blue Minnesota evening sky.  Remnants of the original "moose" logo were prevalent on the outside of the building.  

Stepping inside Urban Lodge, I found an expansive building with a main bar and dining area on the first floor.  It featured a high ceiling with wood floors with a sort of contemporary decor throughout.   A number of tables and booths lined the dining area at Urban Lodge. 

The bar was actually rather small with only a handful of seats.  Large vats were located behind the bar area.  I ended up taking a seat at the bar that evening.   

Toward the back of the building was a dual room that appeared to be a functional part of the brewery along with what would have been a meeting or party room.  The place was very clean and fresh smelling for a brewery.  

I noticed a number of people walking up the stairs from the main bar/dining area and it turned out there was a nice little rooftop patio up there.  It seated about 40 people and while it didn't have the greatest views, it was still a nice place to congregate on a nice evening.  

The bartender/server that evening was Michael and he gave me a food menu to look over.  I was trying to figure out what they had for beers and he pointed out a handful of beers on a board.  For my first beer, I took the curious named Alpha Acid Theory IPA - a somewhat hoppy beer made with West Coast hops.  It had a forward taste with a bit of a fruit on the backside to mellow it out.  I liked it a lot.  For my second beer, I got a seasonal beer they were just about out of - the March Madness American pale ale.  The APA was a bit more bitter on the backside than the IPA and I didn't like it as much as I liked the Alpha Acid Theory IPA.  

The food menu at Urban Lodge was pretty limited that evening.  The food menu that I found on their web site featured a number of items that I know weren't available the night I was there.  It shows that in addition to the Flying Pig pizza, they also have Neapolitan pizzas, a meat loaf or a garlic shrimp entree, some burgers and a number of sandwiches.  The single sheet menu I had in my hand that visit consisted of just Flying Pig pizza, a handful of appetizers, and about six sandwiches and no burgers.  

Quite frankly, nothing sounded that appetizing to me and I contemplated getting up and taking off for some other place.  But I ended up getting the antipasto sandwich -  basically two toasted flat breads with Genoa salami, prosciutto, lettuce, tomato, sliced Kalamata olives, with asiago cheese and a garlic aioli.  French fries were supposed to come with the sandwich but I was able to talk Michael into getting me some of what I call "The State Food of Minnesota" - tater tots.  

The sandwich was all right - I had my heart set on getting a reuben at the Capital Tavern, but they didn't have one at Urban Lodge.  It had a nice Italian deli-style taste quality and the bread was crispy on the outer shell, but chewy throughout.  I was more happy with the tater tots - I'm always happy when I can get tater tots.  The sandwich was fine, but nothing special.  

While it turned out to be my "Plan B" when the first restaurant I wanted to go to was closed for the evening, Urban Lodge turned out to be a pleasant enough experience.   They have a nice brewery with some interesting beers, however, the sandwich I had - while fine in taste - wasn't anything all that special.  The menu that evening was limited, but it appears that they've added more items since my visit.  They seem to be more known for their Flying Pig pizzas, but I wasn't in the mood for a pizza that evening.  Still, it was a nice visit and the food was good enough for what I was looking for.  

 

Olde Brick House - St. Cloud, MN

St. Cloud, Minnesota has a number of good and quite interesting restaurants that I've found during my travels there over the years.  My dealer there was telling me about a new place - an authentic Irish pub - in downtown St. Cloud where he had installed the audio/video system.  As I left his place around 4:30 p.m., I decided to stop by the Olde Brick House for a late lunch/early dinner.   

The building at the corner of 1st Street South and 6th Ave. South (see map) that houses the Olde Brick House dates back to 1890 when it was opened as a saloon.  Over the first 10 years of its existence, the tavern had an unsavory reputation as the upstairs was a gambling hall and a house of ill-repute.  Local authorities raided the upstairs a couple times over the years and by 1900 the saloon had its liquor license revoked.  

Starting in 1903, the building had been a "tied" house - a tavern owned by a local brewery, then a Moose Lodge, and then a cafe.  By 1964, a new owner moved in and started a bar - the Corner Bar - that was famous locally for their hot beef sandwiches.  In the 70's, the bar turned into the Aspen Corner Bar, then a few years later it was renamed the Dick Titus Watering Hole.  But by the early 1990's with the country music/line-dancing/boot-scootin' craze full in gear, it became Charlie's Wild Wild West.  When that era ended with a thud, it was rechristened First Street Station to try and hold on to the country crowd.  When that didn't work, the owners renamed it Rum Runners.  Rum Runners had a reputation for bringing in a tough crowd and when the city didn't renew their liquor license in 2013, the place closed down.  It sat vacant for nearly 3 years.

Local restaurateur Steve Letnes - already somewhat of a restaurant mogul with regional chains Boulder Tap House (click here to read about the Road Tips visit to Boulder Tap House) and Grizzly's Wood Fired Grill - got together with restaurant industry veteran Pete Poepping to buy the empty space in September of 2015.  Not knowing exactly what they wanted to do with the old building, the two brainstormed over a missing niche of restaurants in St. Cloud.  They came up with the concept - an authentic Irish pub.  

Pictured right - Pete Poepping and Steve Letnes.  (Photo courtesy St. Cloud Times.)

The partners consulted Kieran Folliard who once owned four Irish pubs in the greater Minneapolis/St. Paul area until he sold his shares in 2011.  Folliard came to look at the space and he said that the building would be a perfect space for an authentic Irish bar - it had a lot of space and it could accommodate multiple bars like many pubs have in Ireland.  From there, Letnes and Poepping took off to tour pubs in Ireland before coming back to St. Cloud to begin a complete transformation of the building, gutting the interior down to the brick walls.   60 full-sized roll-off dumpsters hauled off furnishings, old supplies, fixtures and woodwork by the time they were ready to transform the space into an Irish pub.   

To capture the authenticity of an Irish pub, Letnes and Poepping hired an Irish company - Ol' Irish Pubs, Ltd. - which specializes in building out authentic Irish pubs around the world - to design and build the fixtures for the restaurant.  The original bar in the building - which dated back to the early 1900's - was painstakingly restored and after four months of building the fixtures in Ireland, the company came over to install the rest of the woodwork, fixtures, and furnishings.  Olde Brick House opened in January of this year.  

I found parking on the street in front of the building and went inside.  Just inside the front door that sits on the corner was a small bar area.  I'm guessing that it was the original bar with an ornate back bar with a walk-thru to another bar behind it.  This is known as the Old Head Bar, a traditional greeting area for patrons at pubs in Ireland.

The bar behind the front bar was where I parked myself.  There were not many people in the place - given that it was 4:45 in the afternoon - and I was greeted by a woman by the name of Tess who had a cheery attitude and a friendly demeanor.  She gave me a menu to look over and I ordered up a Smithwick's - one of the many Irish beers they had on tap - to start out.  The Smithwick's was fresh and tasty.  Olde Brick House claims they have over 150 different types of Irish, Scotch and American whiskies to choose from and from the number of bottles along the wall on the back bar, I'd say that was a conservative number. 

The main downstairs dining area features a number of high top tables and booths with a soothing honey yellow color on some of the walls with exposed brick along one wall.  

The menu at Olde Brick House features a number of traditional Irish favorites including Guinness-battered fish and chips, corned beef and cabbage, bangers and mashed, and Shepherd's pie.  They had a Celtic meatloaf on the menu that featured a slice of grilled meat loaf on a bed of champ potatoes, then topped with creamed cabbage, fried onion straws and gravy.  I thought about that for a moment before I started to look for something else.  For more American tastes, the Olde Brick House featured steaks, seafood and pasta on the menu.

The sandwich side of the menu featured a handful of burgers and sandwiches including a meat loaf sandwich (the meat loaf keep calling my name) that was topped with onion straws, cheddar cheese and gravy and served on a toasted baguette, as well as a cheese steak sandwich topped with a Guinness cheese sauce, onion straws and wine-sautéed mushrooms.  They also had fish tacos - your choice of broiled or battered Atlantic cod - and they had a burger that was topped with cheddar cheese and brown sugar bacon.  But I decided to go with the Olde Brick House's signature reuben sandwich.  

The reuben came on toasted dark rye topped with Swiss cheese and sauerkraut, and came with a creamy housemade sauce called Dublin sauce.  Plump pub chips - basically steak fries - and a small container of cole slaw came on the side.  

The corned beef was thick cut and piled high in between the dark rye bread.  There was a lot of meat in the sandwich and it was tender and flavorful.  It was a messy sandwich - I had to ask Tess for more napkins twice.  But it was wonderfully messy and the taste was very good.  It was one of the better reuben sandwiches I've encountered in my travels.  While I didn't try any of the cole slaw, I did have a few of the steak fries that were cooked perfectly with crispy shell on the outside and a soft flaky consistency inside.  The sandwich was more than filling and I was definitely full when I finished the last bite.    

After finishing my late lunch/early dinner, I took the time to run upstairs to take a look at the renovated second floor.  There were a couple of private reception/dining rooms - one larger than the other - up there, but the largest room on the second floor - the Music Room - featured a large rectangular old fashioned bar in the center of the room.  It featured large murals on the walls and a tin ceiling with antique style lighting around the room.  Large windows allowed for a lot of natural daylight to come into the room.  While I thought the downstairs dining area was quaint, I really liked the second floor bar area.  It was the kind of place where I could sit for a couple hours unwinding while enjoying a beer.   

 

The Olde Brick House is an exceptional Irish Pub.  From the intricate detail on the decor, to the large selection of whiskies, to the number of Irish beers on tap, to the traditional Irish food found on the menu, there's not many places like the Olde Brick House that I've come across in my travels across the Midwest.  The rueben sandwich was exceptional in quality and taste - the corned beef was thick, juicy and piled high on the dark rye bread.  And Tess' service was professional, friendly and prompt.  People who live in St. Cloud are fortunate to have an authentic Irish pub like the Olde Brick House in their community.  I wish we had one just like it where I live.  

 

 

Old Capital Tavern - Sauk Rapids, MN

I spent the night in St. Cloud last fall because all of the affordable hotel rooms were filled in the Twin Cities for an event going on in the area.  I wanted to try someplace that was unique to the area and I found a place over in Sauk Rapids just across the Mississippi River from St. Cloud that sounded interesting.  I ended up going to the Old Capital Tavern for dinner that evening.  

Adam Salzer was an information and public relations officer in the U.S. Army who had a love for craft beers and old style taverns.  After getting out of the Army, he wanted to run a throw-back bar and restaurant but he didn't want to just open it in any building.  Searching around central Minnesota, he found a building in downtown Sauk Rapids that had been built in 1915 as a tavern.  When Prohibition came about a few years later, the place was shuttered.  Over the years, the building had been a car dealership and a flower shop, but was empty when Salzer found it.  Salzer and a couple of partners gutted the building and recreated a 1920's-style tavern in the spot.  They opened the door to the Old Capital Tavern in June of 2013.  

Now, I can't quite figure out why Salzer and his partners named their place the Old Capital Tavern.  St. Paul is and has been the state capital since Minnesota was established as a territory in 1849 before becoming a state in 1856.  I couldn't find anywhere the St. Cloud or Sauk Rapids was any type of a capital other than a local seat of government.  So, the Old Capital Tavern name is a mystery to me as to why they named it that.  (It may have been the name of the original tavern, too.)

It was about a 15 minute drive to Old Capital Tavern located at the corner of Division and Benton Dr. in downtown Sauk Rapids (see map).  I found parking on the street near the the side of the building and went in.  The interior definitely made it look like you were stepping back into the 1920's.  From the tin ceiling to the old style light fixtures to the hand crafted bar, the attention to detail was remarkable.  

I took a seat at the bar and was greeted by the bartender/server that evening, a nice guy by the name of Ian.  He gave me a menu to look over and gave me a time to take a look at what I wanted to drink. 

The line-up of beers on tap was impressive, to say the least.  The light blue spigot of Kona Big Wave Golden Ale stood out among the 50 beers they had on tap.  Happy to see Big Wave Golden Ale on tap anywhere, I ordered one of those from Ian.  They also had an equally impressive selection of bourbon, rye, Scotch and Irish whiskeys - over 130 different varieties.  This was my kind of place.  

The food on the menu was also seemingly a step up from your typical bar or pub food.  Appetizers included smoked duck legs in a Thai orange ginger sauce; Thai lettuce wraps with a choice of either Sriracha salmon or a Korean-style Bulgogi beef; and a smoked salmon dip with spinach and artichokes, topped with a baked asiago cheese and served with pita bread.  

Entrees included a Mac and Cheese dish that featured cavatappi pasta in a spicy cheese sauce with pork, bacon and broccoli mixed in.  There was also the pot roast - slow-roasted beef short ribs with potatoes, carrots, onions and mushrooms cooked in a bourbon/stout sauce.  They had jambalaya on the menu, as well as a 14 ounce ribeye and a 12 ounce strip steak.  They had a lamb burger, as well as fish tacos (I saw that they were deep fried cod pieces or I would have signed up for those), and something called the "Four Alarm Pig's Ass Masterpiece" - a pulled pork sandwich served with a house-made spicy stout barbecue sauce, and topped with giardiniera, pepper jack cheese, red cabbage and served on a garlic baguette.  

I was in a quandary - I was hungry, but I wasn't.  I thought about getting the meatloaf - topped with pepper jack cheese and caramelized onions, and served with garlic/parmesan mashed potatoes.  Then I saw the  Old Capital reuben sandwich that featured house-smoked corned beef, topped with a house-made 1000 Island dressing, Swiss cheese, red and green cabbage sauerkraut, and giardiniera served on pumpernickel bread.  And the Cuban sandwich sounded good as it came with house-made mojo pork, ham, smoked provolone, sliced pickles and yellow mustard on pressed Cuban bread.  The "Cuban bread" part caught my eye because I feel it's the sweet Cuban bread that makes a great Cuban sandwich, not the pressed panini-style Italian or French bread that nearly every other place in the Midwest has for their Cuban sandwich.  

When Ian came over to take my order, I quizzed him on the Cuban sandwich and asked him if it was truly Cuban bread.  "The real stuff, the sweet Cuban bread," I asked.  He assured me that it was.  Against my better judgment - mainly because I was really interested in the reuben and/or the meatloaf - I ordered the Cuban sandwich.  

And Ian oversold me on the Cuban sandwich.  It was on a pressed panini Italian bread and not the sweet Cuban bread that he assured me it would be.  And why would I have thought any different?  I haven't had a good Cuban sandwich since I was last in Miami 18 years ago.  Still the sandwich on its own was good.  The sweet and sour taste of the mojo pork - marinated in a combination of orange juice, lime juice, garlic and other spices - was very good.  The pork was shredded and tender, and the smoked provolone was a nice complement to the meat.  I got passed the fact that it was pressed Italian bread and enjoyed the sandwich as much as I could.  

Along with the Cuban sandwich came a side of seasoned fries that were actually pretty good.  But there was so much meat in the sandwich that I probably only had a handful of fries with my sandwich.   

I'm sort of wavering on how much I liked the Old Capital Tavern.  The food offerings were definitely a step up from regular pub food, they had a great craft beer selection and an overwhelming number of whiskeys to choose from.  I'm still somewhat kicking myself for getting the Cuban sandwich, even though it was better than most Cuban sandwiches I've had at other places around the Midwest.  And other than steering me wrong on the Cuban sandwich, Ian's service was top notch.  Given some of the other interesting things they have to offer on the menu, I have Old Capital Tavern on my "Restaurants to Visit" list just to be able to try something else next time. 

Bravo Burritos - St. Cloud, MN

I was calling on one of my dealers in the Twin Cities about a year ago and one of the salesmen asked me where I was heading next.  I told him I had to go see my dealer up in St. Cloud.  "St. Cloud?!  Man, you have to stop at a place up there called Bravo Burritos," he told me.  "That place is the best!"  I never did try Bravo Burritos and earlier this year the same sales guy asked me if I'd been to Bravo Burritos yet.  It just so happened that I would be going to St. Cloud later in the day and I made it a point this time to stop in and have lunch at Bravo Burritos.  

Bill Ellenbecker and Helen Shay grew up in St. Cloud, went to St. Cloud State, eventually married and moved to San Francisco in the early 70's.  They frequented a Mexican restaurant - El Faro - in the Mission District that specialized in healthy Mexican food known as Mission-style burritos that were bigger than most burritos and filled with beans and rice.  The couple traveled extensively through Mexico during their time in San Francisco learning about Mexican foods and how to make a proper margarita.  

After 13 years of living in San Francisco, the couple contemplated the rest of their lives and decided that their hometown of St. Cloud could benefit from a restaurant like El Faro and they moved back in 1984 to start their dream of owning their own Mexican restaurant.  

At first, they were told by advisors that 9 out of every 10 restaurants failed within the first couple of years, and those that do make it 9 out of every 10 came from people whose families were already in the business.  However, Bill Ellenbecker remembered something a teacher told him when he was going to St. Cloud State - when you find a niche and fill it, that's a great step forward toward being successful.

Pictured right - Bill and Helen Ellenbecker.  Photo courtesy St. Cloud Times.

The Ellenbeckers opened Bravos Burritos Mexicatessen and Bar in downtown St. Cloud in April of 1985.  The styled their menu similar to El Faro in San Francisco, even serving the burritos in aluminum foil like the restaurant in the Mission District did.  They also came up with other traditional Mexican foods that were derived from cookbooks - some only in Spanish - the two had picked up during their travels to Mexico.  Bravos Burritos were the first restaurant in the area to serve fajitas and to serve margaritas without the syrupy mix that most American Mexican restaurants served.  The margaritas were made with fresh squeezed lime juice, Cointreau and Triple Sec with 100 percent blue agave tequila.  

The biggest problem the Ellenbeckers faced was the fact that ingredients for authentic Mexican food were not readily available in the mid-80's in Central Minnesota.  That meant multiple weekly trips to St. Paul to a Mexican food purveyor to haul back fresh items to make their authentic food.  

After 8 years, the Ellenbeckers opened a larger location in a strip mall in the midtown area of St. Cloud near a couple malls and other eating establishments.  Then in 1995, they opened a third location in Minneapolis along Hennepin Ave.  The location in Minneapolis didn't have a kitchen which meant that the Ellenbeckers would have to make up the food, transport it to Minneapolis in a van and warm it all up once they got there.  

After a few years of working 100 hour weeks looking after three locations, Bill Ellenbecker knew that he was getting burnt out.  He ended up closing both the Minneapolis location and the original downtown St. Cloud location to focus on the midtown location in St. Cloud.  And that's where I went to when I got into St. Cloud around 1:30 that particular afternoon.  (see map)

Bravos Burritos is not big - it has a number of four-seater tables set in between a small bar and a row of two-seater booths along a pine wood wall.  Mexican artwork adorns the wall making for lively visual surroundings. 

The menu is located at the front counter where you order your food, just like at the original El Faro when it was open in San Francisco.  In addition to Mission-style burritos, Bravos Burritos features tacos, fajitas, enchiladas, quesadillas and tostadas.  Meat fillings for their food items include pork carnitas, shredded beef, chicken verde, and something called Bravo Chili, a hot combination of chunky beef and pork simmered in a housemade spicy chili sauce.  Bravos Burritos is also known for their vegetarian items on the menu.  

I wasn't all that hungry, but knew that I needed something to eat as I wouldn't be back in the Twin Cities until later in the evening.  I ended up getting a pork verde enchilada.  It wasn't all that big, but it was smothered in a green chile sauce and cheese, served with a bit of rice and garnished with shredded lettuce,  salsa, sour cream and a single sliced jalapeño.  Chips with refried beans also came with the enchilada prompting the question - Why? - in my head when it was set down in front of me.

The taste of the enchilada was very good.  Along with a pint of Dos Equis Ambar that they had on tap, this was a very good Mexican lunch.  The pork was tender, the green chile verde sauce had a bit of a bite, and the overall taste was outstanding.  I couldn't really find fault with any bit of the meal I was served at Bravos Burritos.  

I contacted the sales guy back at my dealer in Minneapolis and told him that I had just visited Bravos Burritos.  He asked me what I thought and I told him that I thought the pork verde enchilada was outstanding and with the number of types of meat to choose from I knew that at some point I had to go back and try something else.  Bringing a little bit of Mexico and a little bit of San Francisco to St. Cloud has turned out to be a winning combination for the Ellenbeckers and Bravos Burritos.  It's no wonder they've made it 30 years and counting.  

The White Horse - St. Cloud, MN

While in St. Cloud recently to see my dealer there, I suggested going out for a bite to eat before I headed back to the Twin Cities.  One place one of the guys suggested turned out to be a place that I had on my "restaurants to visit" list, but primarily for their burgers.  We went to downtown St. Cloud to have dinner at The White Horse.  

Brian Lee looked around the restaurant landscape in the St. Cloud area and saw too many corporate places with cookie-cutter menus, not allowing chefs to spread their wings.  He proposed opening a restaurant that would feature talented chefs serving interesting foods to the public.  And the restaurant would be in St. Cloud's historic downtown district.  

He already had his chef in mind, his son, Tommy.  Tommy Lee was a 16 year old exchange student in Germany who made his first German dish - jagerschnitzel - under the watchful eye of his exchange mother.  With that, he was hooked on cooking.  But not just any one style of cooking, the younger Lee explored different culinary stylings from around the world.  

The Lee's found a downtown location that had first been built as a bar in 1907.  (see map)  Over the years, the name of the place changed - the one most notable to St. Cloud residents and students at St. Cloud State was the Sportsman, a popular college hangout for years.  Brian Lee did some digging into the historical past of the building and was told by some older St. Cloud residents that the original name of the place in the early 20th century was the White Horse.  He thought it would be a great way to pay historical homage to the spot that first served beer over 100 years before.  It was after Lee opened The White Horse in March of 2008 that he found out that the original name was actually The White Bear.  He sort of shrugged his shoulders and thought that The White Horse was a better name for his restaurant/bar.

I was told by my dealer that in order to be a successful restaurant in downtown St. Cloud it has to be a bar first and a restaurant second.  From the outside, it looked like just a regular small town tavern.  Walking into the place, I immediately loved the joint.  The long narrow building looked like an old time tavern with a great old bar along the east wall with tables and booths throughout the rest of the place.  The place was also packed (it was around 6:30 p.m. when we walked in) and we had a little bit of a wait to get a table.  We ordered up some beers at the bar while we waited - The White Horse had a great variety of beers.  I got a Surly Fest beer, their interpretation of an Oktoberfest beer.  

We finally were seated at a large table toward the back of the restaurant and given menus to look over.  To say the menu is diverse is an understatement.  I've read good things about The White Horse's burgers, but a number of things caught my eye on the menu.  It was a veritable international smorgasbord of food.  The jagerschnitzel that a young Tommy Lee first made in Germany years ago is on the menu.  There's Vietnamese food, a Korean entree, Italian food, Thai food, Lee's take on Japanese cuisine with a misoyaki salmon dish, and - most interestingly to me - Indian food.  The menu also featured steaks, fresh seafood, a pan-roasted duck breast, a New Zealand lamb entree, a number of interesting appetizers, as well as a handful of salads.  The White Horse also has daily specials in addition to the food on the menu.

My dealer took the initiative to order up some appetizers while we were looking through the menu.  He ordered up some fried calamari that was served with a great sweet Thai chile sauce, as well as an order of fried green beans that I thought were just all right, and edamane which I've really only seen in Japanese restaurants.  It was all an interesting - and tasty - start to the meal.  

For food, we all got something a little different.  One of the guys went the burger route and ordered one of The White Horse's signature burgers - the PBJ and bacon burger.  The burger is topped with habenero jam made by a local Minnesota company by the name of Jim and Hazzy's, with a housemade peanut butter spread applied before they put the bacon and a spread of cream cheese to finish out the burger.  A side of waffle fries came with the burger.  Now, it didn't sound all that pleasant to me - I don't like the smell or taste of warm peanut butter - but the guy just devoured the burger because he thought it was so good.  

If you remember on my last visit to St. Cloud and our visit to the Boulder Tap House (click here to see that entry), I was impressed with one of the guys - Mike - who could really put away the food.  He was with us again this particular evening, but he went lighter than he did before by ordering up the fish and chips.  But it was a large panko-encrusted fried fish filet that extended over the sides of the large oval plate and was served with waffle fries.  It looked pretty good and I'm not that big on fried fish.  (Not to worry about Mike - after he polished off the fish and chips, he pretty much finished everything else that was on the table that was leftover from everyone else's meals.)  

One of the other guys got the almond/corn flake encrusted wild Canadian walleye filet.  He told me that it was as good as it looked.  

My dealer went with the garlic steak - a strip steak served with sauteed red onions, sun-dried tomatoes, mushrooms and chopped garlic.  A side of red potatoes came with the steak.  It was a pretty looking entree sitting in front of him.  

The Indian food on the menu was the thing that caught my eye.  They had a spicy madras curry entree with your choice of tofu, chicken, shrimp or mussels.  There was a chicken korma dish on the menu, as well as a palek paneer vegetarian dish.  But with a bit of trepidation - thinking that they have so many diverse entrees on the menu that they can't do all of them very well - I ended up getting the rogan josh.  It featured thick chunks of lamb meat in a somewhat spicy housemade masala sauce.  Basmati rice came on the side.  From the first bite I was hooked.  It was as good of rogan josh that I've had in traditional Indian restaurants.  While the masala sauce had a nice spicy bite, it wasn't overpowering to me.  I've never gotten Indian food outside of an Indian restaurant, but the rogan josh at The White Horse was just outstanding.  

However, the most intriguing thing to me on the whole menu was a side of the bacon mac and cheese.  I asked our server if there was a way that I could get a side of it and she brought out what looked like a half-entree order of the stuff.  It was in a small baking dish with crumbled bacon and bread crumbs on top with a creamy cheese sauce baked in with the penne pasta.  I really only wanted a couple bites of the stuff, but it was very good.  Oh, and very rich!  Each of us took a couple three bites of the bacon mac and cheese with Mike finishing off the rest of what we didn't eat.  

And don't ask me why - because I was so stuffed from the very good rogan josh - by our server somehow talked me into trying a piece of their pumpkin cheesecake that they had as a dessert that evening.   It had a cream cheese frosting on top and the taste was very good.  I only took a couple bites before I passed it around the table.  I just love the taste of pumpkin for desserts and this one didn't disappoint.  

On my next visit to The White Horse I'll have to try one of their burgers that I've read good things about.  But for this visit, I couldn't believe at how good their rogan josh was.  Don't let the diverse menu scare you off - it appeared that everyone liked their food at The White Horse very much. It's tough for a chef to pull off doing so many things so very well.  But chef Tommy Lee did it very nicely.  Don't let them fool you - The White Horse is a restaurant first and a bar second.  

Boulder Tap House - St. Cloud, MN

In St. Cloud on a recent visit, I did some training for one of my dealers in the area and I offered to take them out for some food and beer.  The owner suggested we go to a place in which they put in the sound and video system - Boulder Tap House.  I'd gone past Boulder Tap House a few times on my previous visits to St. Cloud and always wondered about the place.  I was more than happy to take them there to try the place out.  

The Boulder Tap House is under the corporate umbrella of the Letnes Restaurant Group located in St. Cloud.  Brothers Steve and Curt Letnes opened the first Grizzly's restaurant in St. Cloud in 1995 and expanded their restaurants to a total of 14 locations in Minnesota, North Dakota and Wisconsin.  The Letnes Brothers, along with Rich Proctor, also own Poncho and Lefty's Tex-Mex Grill in Baxter, MN.  In 2007, Kent Letnes - a son of Curt Letnes - opened his own restaurant venture under the Letnex Restaurant Group banner, Milwaukee Burger Company.  They now operate three locations of that restaurant in Wisconsin.  

Most of the Grizzly's locations were in strip malls around the upper Midwest, but the group decided to abandon those locations for free standing buildings.  The Grizzly's at Crossroads Center shopping mall in St. Cloud was shut down and the liquor license was transferred to their new venture, the Boulder Tap House that had taken over a what was the old Timber Lodge Steakhouse location on the south side of St. Cloud.  (see map)  The Boulder Tap House opened in 2011 and a second location opened in Mankato later that year.  A third Boulder Tap House opened in the Brainerd/Baxter area in 2012 and I was told by my dealer that they were working on a fourth Boulder Tap House location in Superior, WI that is scheduled to open sometime later this year.   

Managing partner Ray Herrington had a table ready for us when we walked into the Boulder Tap House around 7:30 p.m.  The place was sort of packed because they were debuting a new beer from a local Twin Cities brewery that I wasn't familiar with, Fulton.  It's a small brewery that was started five years ago by four college buddies in a one-car garage.  I had their IPA and it was pretty good.

 
The Boulder Tap House is primarily a sports bar.  A number of flat screen televisions as well as large projection television were throughout the place.  My dealer was telling me that they did the audio and video switching system, taking me into a back area by the kitchen to show me the myriad of satellite receivers, switching devices and video boxes that controlled the video at Boulder Tap House.  It was a pretty impressive system, I have to say.  

The Boulder Tap House concept closely follows the Milwaukee Burger House concept - over 40 beers on tap (including Kona Longboard Lager and Capital Supper Club, two of my favorite beers), over-the-top burgers, and a number of higher end appetizers.  Looking through the menu, I saw that they had 15 specialty burgers including the aptly named Defibrillator - it was a double cheeseburger topped with cheese curds and smokehouse bacon, then topped with lettuce, tomato, pickles, relish, jalapeño peppers, banana peppers, sautéed mushrooms, fried onions, and something they call Burger Co. sauce, which I think is sort of a spicy ranch-style dressing.  You could also make your own Tap House burgers that consisted of a choice nine different cheeses (including house-made cheese curds), four different types of bacon (including a pepper bacon and jalapeño bacon), eight toppings as diverse as Pabst Blue Ribbon-sautéed onions, fried egg, onion straws, banana peppers and fresh avocado, and a half-dozen different sauces.    

My dealer decided to start out with a number of appetizers which included spicy chicken quesadillas, spicy chicken lettuce wraps and two different types of wings - one batch with a habanero and mango sauce, and the other that were blackened.  He really likes the lettuce wraps and I tried one and it was good.  It had enough of a zippy spice on the chicken to get your attention.  I did try a couple of the habanero and mango chicken wings, as well as a couple of the blackened chicken wings.  I thought the sweet and spicy taste of the habanero/mango wings was a nice combination.  While the habanero sauce didn't burn your face off, the fruity mango taste on the backside made sure of that.  Actually, I thought the blackened chicken wings were more hot in terms of spiciness than the habanero/mango wings. 

The guys decided that they wanted to get some burgers after the appetizers were finished.  I had no problem with that.  I went with one of the specialty burgers - a muenster cheese, bacon and mushroom burger.  One of the guys went with a stuffed jalapeno burger with jalapeno fries.  My dealer went with the Swiss/mushroom burger with Burger Co. sauce.  And one of the guys - a hulking kid by the name of Mike - went with something he called the "Big Assed Burger".  It was basically two different specialty burgers put together - the Defibrillator (which I described earlier) and a stuffed jalapeno and peanut butter burger.  This one I had to see to believe. 

Our food came out and here is what the Big Assed Burger looked like.  It was three burger patties - half pound each topped with melted cheese and peanut butter.  Warm peanut butter is pretty disgusting to me, but this was an interesting burger.  I was more intrigued if he could eat the whole thing.  "Don't worry," my dealer told me.  "He'll kill it."  

 
Here's the stuffed jalapeno burger one of the guys had.  It came with onion straws on top of the burger patty and a mess of sliced jalapenos with the burger.  I like a good jalapeno burger from time to time, but that may have been a little too much for me to handle.  

One of the guys got a burger with both Swiss and cheddar cheese on top of it.  I asked him how if one cheese overpowered the other.  "Beats me," he said.  "I just like the taste of the combination on these burgers."

 
And my burger was topped with sliced sauteed mushrooms, then topped with a thick slab of muenster cheese, then topped with pepper bacon.  The burger was very good.  Cooked to the way I like it - medium with a hint of pink in the middle.  The bun was good, too.  It held together well as I got through the burger.  It was a very good burger.

I couldn't decide on getting fries or onion rings on the side, but I ended up getting the onion rings on the advice of my dealer.  And they were just all right.  I don't think they were made in house, but I wish I would have seen that I could have gotten onion straws instead.  

Let's check back with Mike on the Big-Assed Burger.  Here he is making a significant dent in the burger.  He is a big kid, but not fat in any way.  

 
And he ate the whole thing - along with the sweet potato fries he had AND some of the extra onion rings that we had ordered for the table.  Oh my GOD!!!  I was impressed.  The kid could definitely eat.  I asked him why he didn't use any of the Burger Co. sauce and he said, "It just gets in the way of the taste of the peanut butter and jalapenos."  I had to laugh at that.  

After dinner, one of the guys wanted to get one of the milkshakes they feature at the Boulder Tap House.  They use premium ice cream and feature vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, caramel and banana shakes or malts.  And you can have any combination of those flavors in one.  They also have other shakes that feature additives such as Oreo cookies, Butterfinger, caramel mocha and peanut butter.  They also feature adult milkshakes with choices of Kahlua, creme de cacao, creme de menthe and vanilla vodka as part of the shakes.  He just got the basic vanilla shake with a large cherry on top.  And they brought out the remaining shake in the metal mixing can.  He finished the shake in the tall malt glass and then finished what was left in the mixing can - which was about a third full.  There was some impressive eating going on that evening.  

I have to say that my first visit to the Boulder Tap House was enjoyable enough that I'd have no problem going back if my dealer's guys wanted to go back there at some time in the future.  My burger was very good, the beer selection was top notch, if there was a sporting event on at the time they had it on one of their televisions.  And the service was very good, as well.  I was very impressed with the Boulder Tap House.  And very impressed with the eating display that went on there, as well.

American Burger Bar - St. Joseph, MN

The last couple three times I've driven out of St. Cloud, MN on Country Road 75 toward Interstate 94 and on up to Fargo, I've passed an interesting looking restaurant in the small town of St. Joseph, MN just to the west of St. Cloud - American Burger Bar.  On a recent trip to the area, I decided that I'd stop in this time to the place to try - what else?  A burger! 

American Burger Bar is actually part of a three-restaurant operation that is under a corporate umbrella owned by partners Brad Ireland and Eric Sandrock.  Ireland Sandrock Systems, Inc. also owned McRudy's Pub and RumRunners Comedy Club in St. Cloud until they got into a situation with the city earlier this year when officials didn't want to renew McRudy's alcohol permit.  They also owned American Joe Coffee Shop before it was folded into one of their American Burger Bar locations.  But before all that happened, Ireland and Sandrock were the franchise owners in the Embers restaurant chain located around Minnesota.  At its height, Sandrock and Ireland owned seven Embers locations.  The last Embers - Barbara Jean's Embers American Cafe in Milaca, MN, north and east of St. Cloud - closed earlier this year. 

Sandrock's and Ireland's first foray into a dedicated burger joint was a place called American Burger Emporium in the east side Twin Cities suburb of Woodbury, MN.  The place opened in 2008 and the concept went over extremely well.  Looking to expand, Ireland and Sandrock teamed up with chef Rino Baglio to open the first American Burger Bar in St. Paul in early 2009.  They took over a spot that housed the former Matty B's supper club.  The supper club was owned by former Minnesota Viking football player Matt Birk, who is a St. Paul native.   

Sandrock and Ireland, along with Baglio, came up with a concept of gourmet burgers including Kobe beef burgers and burgers made from bison and Certified Black Angus beef.  The place featured "build-your-own" burgers, as well as house specialities as the Juicy Klucy - a take-off on the cheese-stuffed burgers that are big in the Twin Cities, only this one is made with Kobe beef.  

After working with Baglio for a little over a year, Sandrock and Ireland parted ways with the chef.  Sandrock and Ireland said the split was amicable, but Baglio said he was terminated.  Either way, Sandrock and Ireland forged ahead with the American Burger Bar concept.  They opened their second location in St. Joseph, MN over Labor Day weekend of 2010.  The large stand-alone structure was made out of stone and formally housed a restaurant fittingly named The Stonehouse.  The St. Joseph location opens at 8 a.m. and also serves breakfast.  In the spring of 2011, a third location for American Burger Bar opened on Hennepin Ave. in downtown Minneapolis.  Later that year, they closed the American Burger Emporium in Woodbury to focus on their American Burger Bar concept.

The St. Joseph location for American Burger Bar is located just before the entrance ramp to Interstate 94 at the corner of Country Road 75 and 115th Ave./Collegeville Road. (see map)  The College of Saint Benedict and St. John's University are located just down the road from the restaurant.  It was around 1:30 when I got in to the place.  Interestingly, the place was void of customers with the exception of a lone figure sitting at the bar.  I was sort of standing there looking over the well-lit, yet empty dining room when a lady by the name of Chandra came out to greet me.  She said, "We're a little slow today with the rain, so you pretty much have the place to yourself."  I asked if I could sit at the bar and she said that would be great.  

 
The bar area was very nice with dark wood paneling, inlaid stone walls and a very nice rectangular bar.  I took a seat and she asked me if there was anything that I'd like to drink.  I noticed that they had the Bell's Two Hearted Pale Ale on tap and I asked for one of those.  She said, "We just got that in for the first time yesterday.  I haven't tried it yet."  I told her that she would probably be selling lots of it.  

Looking over the menu she gave me, I decided to just make my own burger.  I was going to get the basic Black Angus burger and then add on to that for an upcharge.  They had six different types of cheese to choose from, as well as a number of toppings such as spinach, jalapenos, grilled peppers, caramelized onions and grilled pineapple.  They also had premium toppings such as black truffles, peppered bacon, grilled crab slaw, and homemade chili.  I decided upon a Black Angus burger patty - medium - topped with sauteed mushrooms, jalapeno bacon with pepperjack cheese.  I had my choice of bun types and I got the onion bun.  For a side, I had my choice of American Burger Bar's skinny fries, or I could upgrade to tater tots, truffle fries, sweet potato fries or onion rings.  None of them sounded good to me - I was just there for the burger.  Chandra suggested a salad - yeah, I'll take a salad.  I ordered it with their Catalina dressing.  

The salad was all right, nothing really special.  The greens were fresh.  The Catalina dressing was good, but not the best I've had in a restaurant.    

Chandra brought the burger out and it looked very promising.  Two slabs of jalapeno bacon were on top of the burger patty that was covered by the pepperjack cheese.  A nice amount of sauteed mushrooms were included on the burger.  Red onion slices and dill pickles came with the burger.  

But I was disappointed in the onion bun.  It looked good, but I found it to be a little dried out.  It didn't have the spongy texture that you'd expect with a fresh baked bun.  

The burger, too, was somewhat disappointing.  The beef was unspectacular for Black Angus beef, it was pretty neutral in taste and it was a tad overcooked for a medium burger.  The jalapeno bacon was spicy and helped zip up the taste of the burger.  The sauteed mushrooms were a good addition, but with the spicyness of the bacon I couldn't really taste the pepperjack cheese.  I'd have to give the burger a "C" if I were grading it.  It wasn't bad, but I guess I expected so much more from a place with the name American Burger Bar.  

With the toppings and a couple beers, the bill came to over $20 bucks.  I didn't think the burger was all that great for the price.  Chandra did a great job in taking care of me, however, and I thought the place - especially the bar area - was very nice.  I may go to one of the other American Burger Bar locations in the Twin Cities to see how well they stack up next to the one in St. Joseph.  But I'll have to say that I went in with a lot of hope, but came out with some disappointment with American Burger Bar. 

Fuji Sushi and Steakhouse - Waite Park, MN

Over the years, I've found that sushi in the Midwest, especially in smaller cities, is usually a hit or miss kind of thing.  That's why when I agreed to meet with the co-owners who run an audio/video dealership we sell to in St. Cloud, MN over sushi last year, I was a little less than eager to meet up with them at the place - Fuji Sushi and Steakhouse.  However, the sushi was surprisingly excellent, as was the hibachi steak that we had, as well.  When I was in the St. Cloud area earlier this summer, I set up another lunch appointment at Fuji Sushi and Steakhouse.   This time, I was actually looking forward to the meal.  

In May of 2010 when a lot of restaurants were closing up due to the downturn in the economy, Fuji Sushi and Steakhouse opened their doors on the corner of S. 2nd St. and S. 2nd Ave. in Waite Park, a small connected suburb to St. Cloud's Southwest side (see map).  Pat Rogosheske is the managing partner in the place.  Rogosheske was born and raised in Japan and had about 25 years of restaurant experience before opening the doors to Fuji Sushi and Steakhouse.  The restaurant has thrived on the strength of great food at a good price.  Rogosheske does a lot of promoting of the restaurant through in-house specials and discounts.  

The entry way of the restaurant features a cozy waiting area and hostess stand.  The bar is off to the left as you walk down the hall to the main dining room.  There's a sushi bar opposite the regular bar with a number of booths in a lounge nearby.

The main dining room features six hibachi stations where the chefs give diners a "Benihana"-type experiece, complete with all the hibachi chef's food tricks.  As I said, we had both sushi and hibachi last year and it was very, very good.  On this visit, we opted to sit at the sushi bar, conduct some business and have some lunch.

We took a look through the menu, but one of the guys told me they had some killer lunch specials.  As I said, one of Pat Rogosheske's marketing plans is offer discounts and specials - especially during lunch.  One of the daily lunch specials that is your choice of two sushi rolls with a cup of the miso soup for $9.95.  Now, that's a killer deal.  I remembered their spicy tuna rolls were very good from the year before, so I ordered two of those with the miso soup.  One of the guys from my dealer ordered a couple rolls on his own with the soup while the other guy ordered a the sushi roll and five pieces of sushi special.  The time to make the rolls and sushi gave us ample time to go over programs, numbers and get caught up with what was what.

The sushi/sushi roll was the first thing to come out.  The presentation was very nice with the roll in the middle with the five pieces of sushi spoked out from the center.  Remarkably, the sushi is as fresh as fresh can be for a sushi place in St. Cloud, MN.  It doesn't have a fishy taste to it - something I've run into in much larger cities.  

After finishing the miso soup, our sushi rolls came out.  The spicy tuna rolls were, once again, outstanding.  They had a nice texture to the bite and a nice little spicy zip to the taste.  I was overly happy with the rolls, but I was thinking I wanted to try something else.

The other guy who got the same special as me also thought he needed a couple pieces of sushi, so we ordered up about 8 more pieces that we shared between the two of us.  The smoked salmon was delicious, as was the maguro tuna.  I remarked, "This is so unbelievable that you guys can have this good of sushi in St. Cloud.  I'd put this place up against sushi places in much larger cities."  

One of the guys said, "Oh, yeah.  We've had sushi in a lot of places and we think this place is one of the best we've ever had.  I'll tell you, it blows away most of the sushi places in the Twin Cities."  

Thanks to these guys, I've had some pretty good and memorable meals in St. Cloud over the past few years, but it's tough to beat Fuji Sushi and Steakhouse for great sushi.   The lunch specials are a bargain, but the sushi can be a little high priced.  But, still, to get sushi that good in a small market is worth the extra price.  After two visits to Fuji Sushi and Steakhouse, I can't say enough good things about the sushi at the place.  It's truly remarkable and - surprisingly - very good.  

5th Ave. Grille - St. Cloud, MN

So, I told you about House of Pizza in St. Cloud, MN on Monday, so I could set up this entry for today. 

I'd been promising my dealer in St. Cloud, MN, Audio Video Extremes, that I'd come up to take them out for a nice dinner for quite almost two years.   The co-owners, Rich and Jay, suggested I take them back out to dinner at House of Pizza.  While the return trip to House of Pizza was tempting, especially with a chance to get one of their Italian Conglomerate sandwiches, I wanted to do something upscale.  In the Minnesota northwoods, there are a number of little supper clubs that offer great food.  I asked the guys if there was anything like that in the area.  Rich, who lives about 15 miles outside of St. Cloud, said, "No, there really isn't anything like that around here any more.  There used to be a few of them around that were a 15 to 20 minute drive from town, but they've all gone away."

The problem now was, where is there an upscale restaurant to go to in St. Cloud?  Jay said, "If I'm looking for a good meal, I'll drive into the Twin Cities."  He did suggest one place, 5th Avenue Grille, located in the Radisson Hotel in downtown St. Cloud.  I said it was a date and we'd meet there that evening.  

5th Avenue Grill is billed as an urban contemporary restaurant.  While the setting is elegant and looks very similar to an upscale steak house in a larger market, they have a relaxed atmosphere.   It's the main restaurant for the Radisson, so there is a fair amount of out-of-town travelers that use the bar and restaurant.  

I found the Radisson in downtown St. Cloud and was able to park in the ramp next to the hotel (see map). I was a little late in getting in from Minneapolis, so I found Rich and Jay seated at the bar with one of their installers.  I grabbed a seat next to them and enjoyed a couple drinks and a couple appetizers before we were seated for dinner.  It gave us some time to talk some business and to go over details of a few things that we had going.  

Their installer couldn't stick around for dinner, so it was just the three of us when we grabbed a table.   The waitress was a friend of theirs - small town acquaintances, no doubt.  Jay introduced me to her and he said, "This guy has eaten in some of the best restaurants around.  You can't let him be disappointed in this place."  She said she'd try her best.

We were given menus and I looked through the wine list to see what they had to offer.  Actually, it was a pretty small list, but they did have a few reasonably priced bottles of wine.  One that sort of jumped out at me was the Provenance Vineyards Rutherford Cabernet Sauvignon.  I'd seen that same bottle of wine for well over $100 bucks a bottle at other restaurants.  The 5th Avenue Grille had it for $70 bucks.  I ordered a bottle of that. 

Since we'd had appetizers at the bar, we were ready to jump into dinner.  Even though they offered items such as fresh seafood, pasta, and even ribs, Rich said that the steaks at 5th Avenue Grille were very good, quite possibly the best in the city.  So, that's what I went with.  I got the 8 oz. tenderloin filet, rare plus.  The waitress knew exactly what I was talking about.  "Not quite rare, but not medium rare. Right," she asked. 

They also gave me a choice of homemade sauces.  I thought it would be kind of nice to try their brandy peppercorn sauce.  But they also had a roasted garlic sauce that sounded good, as well.  I asked if I could get both on the side and our waitress said, "Absolutely!"  I also ordered a side of the restaurant's au gratin bacon, cheddar cheese and herb potatoes.  I knew I wouldn't have much of them, but a couple bites would give me an idea as to how good they were.  

Rich ordered a ribeye, medium rare.  Jay also ordered the 8 oz. tenderloin filet, medium rare.  Our wine was poured and it was very good.  I was having a nice relaxing evening with two good guys whose business with me is growing.

Our steaks and sides were brought to the table in about 20 minutes.  My steak was a very large 8 oz. cut and it was cooked perfectly - still red rare in the middle, but warmer than rare.  Jay was also happy with the way his steak was cooked.  The tenderloin filet was juicy and tender.  And his cut, too, was pretty good sized.  Definitely bigger than the 8 oz. advertised on the menu. 

Rich's steak, on the other hand, was way overcooked.  He cut into it and it was pretty tough.  He looked at how it was cooked and you could easily tell it was nowhere close to medium-rare.  He had a couple bites and he said, "Oh, man, this is WAY overdone." 

I said, "Let's get you another steak."

He said, "No, no.  That's OK."

I said, "Look, we're spending some money in this place tonight.  Let's make it right."  I motioned for the waitress to come over.  She slid over to our table and said, "What can I get you?"

I pointed at Rich's steak and said, "He needs a new steak."

Rich said, "Yeah, this is a little overdone."

She looked at it and said, "Oh, my gosh!  I'll say it's overdone!"  She took the plate and ran back to the kitchen.  Jay took a phone call from a client who was having problems with controlling a system, so I shut down my eating while waiting for things to get back to normal. 

After a little over 10 minutes, the waitress came back out with Rich's steak.  He cut into it and declared it to be "much better."  A little while later, the manager came over to ask if Rich's steak was better.  He said it was and she apologized for the screw up.  "I think what he did was cook it along with the filets.  It took a little longer for the filets to cook because they're so much more thick.  I think he just spaced off and threw all three on the grill at the same time.  I certainly apologize for the problem."

Rich said, "It was no problem after I got this steak." 

By the way, the bacon cheddar au gratin potatoes were pretty damn good.  They were flavorful and cheesy with the great taste of caramelized cheese on top.  And the brandy peppercorn sauce was very good, but I was disappointed in the roasted garlic sauce.  It was sort of bland.  I expected more of a garlic "zip" to the taste. 

Overall, the experience at 5th Avenue Grille was above average.  My steak was very good, I enjoyed the au gratin potatoes - the two or three bites I had of them.  And our service was very good.  The waitress, being friends with the guys, had a good sense of humor and was a good sport in some of the guff they were giving her.  The atmosphere at 5th Avenue Grille was relaxed, but the decor was very classy.  All in all, it was a pleasant dining experience.  But if this is the best of what St. Cloud has to offer, I can see where it's worth the hour or so drive into the Twin Cities to get a good meal.

House of Pizza - St. Cloud, MN

In cleaning up a few things on the Road Tips blog recently, I came across this half-written entry from 2007 that I completely forgot I had.  Sometimes I'll start on an entry, but get to working on something else and then forget about the one that I'd started.  And I'm rather embarrassed to come across more than 2 years after visiting this place because the House of Pizza in downtown St. Cloud, MN had an excellent pizza.

The co-owners of Audio Video Extremes in St. Cloud, Rich and Jay, had been raving to me about the House of Pizza ever since I first began to call on them in 2005.  They both had literally grown up on the food from House of Pizza since it had been established in 1964.   They described the pizza as thin crust, plentiful toppings - including the big chunks of Italian sausage that I crave on a pizza - and great to drink beer with.  That's one of the hallmarks of a great pizza for me - does it taste good with an ice cold beer.  I promised that I'd take them out to House of Pizza on a visit.

The House of Pizza, as I said, has been around for 45 years serving beginning as a small pizza and soda shop in downtown St. Cloud.  Over the years, it evolved into one of the more popular pizza places in the state of Minnesota.  Thousands of graduates from St. Cloud State have come back for a taste of House of Pizza, like many former Luther graduates do for Mabe's Pizza in Decorah.  For the last few years, House of Pizza has been run by Brandon Testa, a local man who also owns the Pacific Wok restaurants in the area.  Testa recently opened a second House of Pizza location in nearby Sartell, MN.

I met Rich and Jay at House of Pizza one evening as I was driving back from a day trip to Fargo.  I was able to find parking in a lot not far away from the restaurant (see map).  The interior of the place was clean, but it looked like it hadn't been updated much since the 70's.  The booths were heavy vinyl, the tables and chairs were big and comfortable and it was well lit in the place.  It had been a long day and I was ready for a beer, so we immediately ordered up a pitcher of beer to drink while we looked over the menu.

In addition to pizza, the House of Pizza also offers appetizers, pasta, and hoagies.  I was really intrigued by their Italian Conglomerate hoagie.  If you're a regular reader of this blog, you'll know that I have an hankering for the old Pizza Hut hoagies.  That would be the only reason I'd ever go into a Pizza Hut these days, but they did away with their hoagie years ago.  I've been on a quest for one ever since.   House of Pizza's Italian Conglomerate features grilled Canadian bacon, salami, pepperoni, sautéed mushrooms, onions, green peppers and black olives and then topped melted mozzarella and American cheese.  It's actually a little more involved with the toppings than what a Pizza Hut hoagie offered, but it definitely caught my eye. 

But we were there for pizza that evening.  Jay said, "The crust is thin, but they pile on the toppings.  It's expensive, but you get a lot of pizza for your money."  In addition to the traditional toppings, House of Pizza also offers a number of "gourmet" toppings such as sun-dried tomatoes, roasted red peppers and feta cheese.  The signature pizza at House of Pizza is their House Deluxe - sausage, pepperoni, mushrooms, green peppers and onions.  Green peppers and onions on a pizza doesn't usually agree with my digestive system, but I do like the taste of them.  We ended up ordering a 12" House Deluxe, then got a 12" sausage, pepperoni and mushroom - my old staple.  More beer was needed, so another pitcher was order, as well. 

Jay and Rich told me stories of coming to House of Pizza while they were growing up.  Both had first dates with girls at the place, both had gotten late night pizzas there after drinking at bars in the area over the years, and they both claimed they had never found a better pizza than the House of Pizza. 

Now, I live in the Quad Cities where the locals claim that Harris Pizza is the best they've ever had.  Harris Pizza - or the Quad City Style of pizza, as I call it, is weak.  Harris Pizza spawned a number of similar styles of pizza with a thicker crust and ground sausage rather than the large sausage chunks that "real" pizza has.  So, I get a little leery of locals saying that "their pizza" is the best they've ever had.   

Our pizzas came out and from the first bite, I was hooked.  Oh, my God, was it delicious!  And Jay was right - they load the toppings on the pizza at House of Pizza.  And it tasted great with a cold beer.  I tried a couple of the party cut pieces of the House Deluxe and the peppers and onions didn't overpower the taste of the other toppings like they can on other pizzas.  That's probably because there were so many large chunks of sausage, along with tons of slices of pepperoni and fresh mushrooms.  And the cheese was thick.  And the grease pooled in the center of the pizza.  No wonder it was so popular with the college students who had a good drunk on.  Oh, man - I've just found another great pizza.

As we were eating, I just kept saying, "Oh, my God!", or "Jeez, this is great!"  Rich stopped for a second, looked at me and said, "Did you think we were lying?"   I'll never doubt their word again. 

 House of Pizza was out of this world.  That's all I can say.  There are no words to describe the feeling I had while I was eating the pizza.  I've had some very good pizzas in my travels and I'd put House of Pizza up against the best.  It was a great find.  But I will go back for an Italian Conglomerate hoagie at some point.  But it may be tough to pass up another House of Pizza pie on my next visit. 

Westside Liquor - Waite Park, MN

On my recent trip thru Minnesota, my dealer in St. Cloud was telling me about a wine place in called Westside Liquor.  Knowing my love for wine, good beer and great Scotch, he told me I had to check the place out. 

Bob Feuling gave up the life of being a dairy farmer and selling dairy equipment in the late 70's. With his wife, Linda, they bought a small bar called the West Side Bar in Little Falls, MN that included an inventory of off-sale liquor products.  Bob noticed that people didn't like to come into the bar to buy liquor, so he opened an adjacent liquor store in the early 80's and he called it Westside Liquor. 

Bob moved to a larger location in Little Falls in the mid 80's and then bought a spot in the St. Cloud suburb of Waite Park in 1991 and opened a second store there.  Today, that location is the headquarters for the now 8 Westside Liquor locations across north central Minnesota. 

I went to the one in Waite Park on the advice of my dealer (see map).  It's the largest of the Westside Liquor stores (20,000 sq. ft.) and promised to have a large selection of wines and beers to choose from. 

By the way, each Westside Liquor store features special lighting and cool temperatures to help keep the wine and liquors lasting longer on the shelves.  Some of the workers were walking around in light-weight jackets in the store. 

And the selection at Westside Liquors was impressive.  There was a large area of wines from all over the world.  And the prices were very good, as well.  I picked up a bottle of the Ferrari-Carano 2003 Cabernet for just over $30 bucks.  It's around $36 to $39 dollars back in the Quad Cities. 

The beer area had a number of the typical domestics, but also had a large number beers from upper Midwest small breweries such as Summit, Capital, Schell and Lake Superior.  Actually, I have a lot of beer in my garage that I have to drink up, so I didn't see anything that I absolutely needed. 

But, true to what my dealer told me, Westside has a large selection of premium Scotch whiskys (he's a BIG Scotch aficionado with over 25 bottles of premium Scotch in his bar at home).  Once again, I found myself drooling over some of the 18 and 25 year varieties, but couldn't bring myself to buying anything more at this time. 

The prices were good, the selection was impressive, the presentation was excellent.  Westside Liquors was one of the best overall wine and liquor stores I've ever been in in the Midwest.  And seeing that my dealer in St. Cloud continues to grow his business, I'm sure to be back there.  But only when the weather's warm.    

Granite City Food and Brewery

Granite City Food and Brewery is a chain of about a dozen restaurants/brew pubs in the upper Midwest.  By now, you know that I usually try and stay away from chains like the plague.  But Granite City is still small enough that each restaurant has a little bit of local character to it. 

Granite City started in St. Cloud, MN in 1999 by Steve Wagenheim and brew master Bill Burdick.  Both had been involved in the restaurant business for a number of years prior to opening their first Granite City restaurant.  They just opened their 12th Granite City this month next to the Kansas Speedway in Northwest Kansas City.

Now, most brew pubs - I've found - are brew pubs first and the food is somewhat of an afterthought.  That's not the case with Granite City.  The food is really what brings the people in, the beer is so-so to OK.

Their beers are a little too sweet for my taste.  The Northern Light Lager has a smooth taste, but the aftertaste reminds me of a sweet beer along the lines of Falstaff.  Their Duke of Wellington Pale Ale is also a little too sweet for me.  It doesn't have that good pale ale bite that I like when I finish a swallow.

But as I said, the food is what brings the people in. 

They had just announced they were going to open a Granite City in Davenport sometime in 2003.  I happened to be up in Sioux Falls, SD one evening and just down the street from my hotel was a Granite City.  Turns out it was the second Granite City restaurant in the chain.

Granite City - Sioux Falls

As I found with all the Granite City's I've been to (4 so far), the Sioux Falls Granite City was spacious and well-appointed on the inside and the building looked attractive on the outside.  The one in Sioux Falls has a nice outside patio that overlooks a little pond with a fountain.  Nice touch.

I ordered the meat loaf for my first meal.  When they brought me my meal, I couldn't believe the size of the portions.  In fact, it was too much.  But that's been the trademark - and one of my largest complaints - of Granite City's food service.  There's just too much food. 

I do like their Honey Rosemary Filet Mignon, a filet marinated in honey, garlic and rosemary, then broiled.  Their meat loaf is an old stand-by for me - they grill the cooked meat loaf giving it a nice little flavor that you don't expect out of a meat loaf. 

Granite City's blue cheese peppercorn burger is pretty good.  And their Chicken Florentine lasagna is a good get, too.  They also have pretty good garlic mashed potatoes that you can get when you get a steak. 

And ask for the onion straws instead of french fries if you get a sandwich.  They usually use the onion straws - which are thin onion rings - as a garnish on burgers and other sandwiches.  They're much better than the fries.  And don't let them tell you they can't substitute the onion straws - they can.  I still don't understand why they don't have them available on the menu. 

In addition to the one in Sioux Falls, I've been to the one in Lincoln, NE, Cedar Rapids, IA, and, of course, the one in Davenport.  I've never had a bad meal, the service is always good, the beer is, well, it's OK.  Drinkable, but nothing outstanding.  And the one in Davenport is so popular of an eating destination that the wait can be upwards of 45 minutes to an hour on a Friday or Saturday night.

It's probably a good thing that Granite City says "Food and Brewery" rather than "Brewery and Food".  As I said, it's the food, not the beer, that makes Granite City good.