Actually, there is no “Gramma Butterwick,” but it sounds very nice. Kevin Dorman, part-owner and manager, says it’s a way of marketing specialties on the family restaurant menu. Dorman is staking his hopes for the success of Gramma Butterwicks on such homey foods as pot pies and apple pie. He’s quick to admit that he relies on Charlie’s Bakery for his pastries and that there is no grandma in the kitchen.
We were well satisfied with our lunch stop there. With my soup ($1.45), I had the salad bar ($3.25) served with Texas toast. Constant Companion ordered a Philly steak sandwich. The sandwich ($3.99), is made of thin slices of beef with mushrooms, green peppers, onions and Swiss cheese served on a hoagie bun with a small bowl of au jus—or maybe just bouillon. Anyway, he liked it.
Pear Tree Is Place in the Pink for Leisurely Dining
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FEBRUARY 10, 1988
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It was colder than all get out and I wished Constant Companion would drive our car right into the lobby of the Holiday Inn. As it was he parked as close as he could. And we were all set for lunch in the Pear Tree Restaurant. We went there late for lunch last Tuesday, but there were several tables of people lingering over their coffee.
The luncheon menu is organized neatly. It gives you a list of starters under the heading, “The first move.” It lists salads and light meals on one page and sandwiches, “Between the slices,” on the next page.
For some reason, the Nutty Bird caught my eye. It’s a pumpernickel rye and cream cheese topped with sliced breast of turkey, sprouts and sunflower seeds for $4.35. With the sandwiches, you get fries, onion rings or coleslaw. Constant Companion ordered a Burger Outrageous. This is described as a half pound of choice ground beef, broiled and served on a toasted bun and garnished with “the usual” for $3.25. For 35 cents an item, you can add your choices of cheeses, bacon or barbecue sauce.
CC figured the burger itself would be enough. And when our sandwiches arrived, he was sure of it—although he had a hard time believing it was actually a half pound of beef. My Nutty Bird turned out to be a delightful combination. It’s the type of sandwich you eat with a fork. You wipe your chin often with your cloth napkin. And you take your time to savor it.
That’s what I like about the Pear Tree. It’s a place where you enjoy lingering. The room is done in tones of mauve and gray, with a raised center area for tables surrounded by a brass rail. Around it are large, comfortable booths. The chairs are all upholstered. There are better-than-average goblets and nice tableware along with pink place mats and dainty pink and mauve silk flowers. There are green plants in hanging baskets. And there are accents of light woodwork and latticed windows.
Lunch at the Holiday Inn might cost you a buck or so more than it does when you eat on the run, but it’s worth it. You’ll spend anywhere from $2.50 for soup and salad to $5.25 for a seafood salad. The food is a grade above what I have come to associate with Holiday Inns in other cities. The salad with my sandwich was crisp and fresh tasting. The sandwich was garnished nicely with a lettuce leaf and orange wedge.
After lunch, I had a chance to visit with Chef Brent Knop, who has been restaurant manager since the first of the year. He formerly worked as assistant director of food service for Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. A 1981 graduate of the Culinary Institute of America in New York City, he’s been cooking ever since he was inspired as a youngster by his Lithuanian grandmother. “She never had one meat for a dinner. She had three or four,” he said.
Knop likes continental cuisine. He likes dealing with the classics. Recently, he started Saturday evening service of steak Diane, which he prepares tableside. Chef Knop is one of the few professional chefs in Grand Forks. He loves what he does, and that is reflected in the foods he has been turning out.
Chuck House Is Good Place to Be “Out to Lunch”
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FEBRUARY 24, 1988
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We chose the Chuck House Ranch Restaurant in the Westward Ho Motel when we went out to lunch Feb. 16 because it’s steady and reliable. You always can find something unique on the menu.
We found an almost full house when we arrived at 12:30 P.M. We noticed many of the customers were north enders—people from the North Dakota Mill and Elevator and UND, as well as nearby businesses such as Northern Pump and Caterpillar. Intermingled were several lunch customers from downtown. The Chuck House, with its colorful totem poles and rustic decor, always is interesting. The walls are covered with Wild West posters. There are arrows sticking in the walls. The tables are covered with red-checked cloths. The plastic cow cream pitchers on the table are for sale, and customers buy a couple dozen every week.
I like the menu. It’s varied. It’s clever. And it’s easy to read.
Just to be different, I ordered gyros, “a blend of lamb and beef seasoned with herbs, served with Grecian sauce, onions, tomatoes, pita bread and olives.” All this for $3.75. Constant Companion ordered barbecued beef served on a sourdough bun with french fries for $3.25. Our waitress allowed him to substitute coleslaw for the fries, and we all were happy. It didn’t take her long to motor back with our order. My gyros was topped with eight raw onion rings, so I gave six of them to CC. In turn, he let me finish his coleslaw.
His barbecue meat was lean, and the serving was generous. My meat had a pleasing taste of lamb, and I enjoyed the black olives, lemon and parsley used as garnish. The dressing had a piquant flavor, and I was glad it was on the side. That’s where dressing belongs. When I worked my way down to the pita bread, I found it was thick and delicately browned. It tasted maybe like a fat lefse, and it was good.
The Chuck House went an extra mile, with plenty of ice in a nice glass glass of water; a waitress who mercifully asked us only once if everything was all right (six times is too many); and allowed both of us to keep our plates until both of us were finished.
The Chuck House is an anytime-of-the-day place. It flourishes on home cooking with baked goods by Sandy Montgomery. Breakfasts are big in the Chuck House. It’s one of the few places where you can order hash browns and be assured they will be done crisp and brown. It’s a popular spot for people who like to eat out on Sunday morning.
In its 17 years, the Chuck House has developed a reputation as a very informal, very casual restaurant, but owner Don Lindgren takes salads seriously.
“Lately,” he said, “we’ve been paying more attention to salads. We keep our bowls in the refrigerator and serve romaine lettuce. When we hear people comment on the salad they had with a meal, we know it’s important to them.”
Sonja’s Hus Has Cheery Blue and Red Norwegian Décor
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APRIL 13, 1988
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Sonja’s Hus in the Regency Inn, East Grand Forks, is a homey, cheery and rather quiet little place to go for lunch. The wallpaper is bright blue with a white pattern. There are dainty bouquets of permanent daisies on the table. The booths are deep blue with red cushions. The backs of the wooden booths and the valance for the drapes are decorated with rosemaling, a graceful Norwegian style of painting. The walls are decorated with Norwegian art pieces.
The food is reasonable, especially if you choose the specials. Each day, the coffee shop has two lunch choices for $2.29. Last week, I tried the soup, salad bar and sloppy joe combination, offered as a special. Constant Companion asked, as he often does, for a French dip. It was $3.95.
The coffee shop was rather quiet when we came, but it wasn’t long before many of the tables were filled. Two waitresses were doing double duty there for a while.
Our waitress was Jane. She didn’t have to tell us because she wore a nametag. I thought that was a good idea. She invited me to help myself to the soup and salad bar as she left to put in our order. The salad bar was nice, small but adequate, and all of the items seemed fresh. Sometimes salad bars get so big they are unmanageable. You’ll find rubbery vegetables and French dressing slopped across the carrots. Not so at Sonja’s Hus. There was one large metal bowl
of lettuce mixed with shredded red cabbage and it was replenished. There were several items nearby but not a lot more than would be used.
I started my salad bowl with lettuce on the bottom. I carefully added a couple of broccoli flowerets and three wedges of tomato. Out of respect for my elevated cholesterol count, I used cottage cheese for a topping. I finished it off with a sprinkling of sunflower seeds and grated cheese. Then I took a cup of beef noodle soup. It was good. The noodles were plentiful and the beef was thinly sliced and lean. The broth was a tad too salty.
It took a while, but my sloppy joe arrived. The meat had a good flavor. I was going to skip the potato chips, but they were better than most chips. So I ate them all and looked out the window to see where my self-control had gone. Meanwhile, CC was examining his French dip, which he said was pretty good. The au jus in which he was to dip his beef sandwich was a little on the oily side.
We had coffee and took our time. Some of the other customers were farmers who had been to a meeting in the Regency Inn. Former UND football coach Jerry Olson was sitting nearby, so I asked, “Would you rather be coaching football or farming?”
Olson grinned and said, “It depends on who’s winning.” Then he told us he was about to start planting wheat on his farm near Hoople, N.D. I noticed he ordered the other $2.29 special, chicken, potatoes and vegetable.
Before we left, I visited with Kirsten Jones. She is in charge of Sonja’s Hus coffee shop and Ferdinand’s dining room in the Regency Inn. Her father was born near Erskine, Minn., she said, “and the whole family is Norwegian. So we wanted to use a Norwegian theme in the coffee shop.”
Kirsten threw a little Norwegian into the conversation, enough to convince me she is Norwegian. I knew it for sure when she said, “Uff da.”
The Regency Inn and Sonja’s Hus no longer operate in East Grand Forks.
At the Tomahawk, They Roast the Whole Turkey. People Go to the Highway Cafe for the Kind of Meals They Used to Eat at Home: Meat, Potatoes, Pie.
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MAY 4, 1988
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“Oh, I see you’re out for a home-cooked meal, too,” said Roy Bakken as he and his wife, Yvonne, sat down in the booth next to ours in the Tomahawk Cafe one night last week.
“Yes,” I said. “This is my idea of a home-cooked meal.”
Actually, when you go for a meal at this truck stop cafe near the intersection of U.S. Highway 2 and Interstate 29, you are going back to the basics. There’s nothing fast about the food. Nothing fancy, either. If you want pheasant under glass or oysters Rockefeller, you won’t find them here. You might, however, find lutefisk and lefse. This is one of those places where they peel a batch of potatoes every morning and make up a big pot of soup. They roast whole turkeys—none of this turkey roll business. People come in here and order meat and potatoes. With it, they get gravy and vegetables. And they get soup and coleslaw.
I heard the Bakkens order roast pork sandwiches. And later on, I heard Roy Bakken say, “Pretty good.” That’s exactly what Constant Companion says when he is pleased with something. Men don’t get exuberant.
I should have settled for a sandwich, but instead I ordered the dinner special: Polish sausage and sauerkraut with hash browns and coleslaw. CC ordered roast pork and dressing.
We started with a cup of navy bean soup, which was good. I mean real good. As we continued on with our meal, we found everything good. The coleslaw was crisp, and the potatoes were fried to a golden brown. The food reminded us of dinners people used to eat at noon. If there was any complaint, it would have been that there was too much food. Some people, we understand, order a half a dinner.
Pies are a specialty at the Tomahawk Cafe. You see them when you enter the spacious restaurant. They are going round and round right inside the front door in one of those twirling display cases. Sometimes, I get kind of dizzy watching them. There’s a wide choice of homemade pie every day. And they are good. Cream pies are $1.25 a slice and fruit pies are 95 cents. Ask for them a la mode, and it will cost you 30 cents more. But you get Bridgeman’s ice cream, which to my mind is about as good as it comes.
The Tomahawk Cafe is one of those places that keeps you coming back. In the first place, it’s clean. In the second place, it’s homey. The other night, a trucker was sitting at the counter working a crossword puzzle. People were eating their turkey and dressing and Gordon and Colleen Kuklok’s children were helping out clearing tables and running the cash register. The children are Heather, 13, Callie, 12, Meaghan, 10, and Eamon, 9.
Business has been good in the two years the Kukloks have been in their new location. Gordon Kuklok says his philosophy is to serve good food and make it reasonable. They are busiest Sunday, when they serve roast turkey and dressing for $4.25 and hot turkey sandwiches for $3.25. The hours are between 10:30 A.M. and 2 P.M.
Steady customers count on the Tomahawk for soup. They don’t need a calendar. They know that if it’s pea soup, it’s Monday; bean soup, Tuesday; macaroni-tomato, Wednesday; chicken rice, Thursday; old-fashioned tomato, Friday; and vegetable beef, Saturday.
Marilyn says, “Tomahawk has closed down, and there is no new restaurant in its place.”
Shore Lunch Adds Another Dimension to Food in Mall
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SEPTEMBER 7, 1988
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Fish and chips. Clam chowder and hush puppies. That’s what you’ll find at Shore Lunch, which opened quietly in August in Columbia Mall, right across from John Barleycorn restaurant. With fish as a specialty, Shore Lunch adds another dimension to food in the Mall and to eating out in Grand Forks.
Now that school is back in session and people are home from the lakes, they are beginning to discover Shore Lunch. You can order a Shore Dinner for $5.75 or a Shore Lunch for $3.75. With each plate, you get coleslaw, hush puppies and your choice of baked or French-fried potato wedges. The difference is in the amount of fish. With the dinner you get two fillets, cut into 10 pieces. With the lunch, you get one fillet, cut into five pieces. They are deep fried to order and have a crunchy brown crust.
Constant Companion ordered the Shore Lunch one night last week. He enjoyed the fish and the fries and the slaw. But he wasn’t as crazy about hush puppies as was a young man sitting at a nearby table, whistling them down.
Fried fish and fried potatoes seemed a little much to us. Another time, we decided, it would be wiser to order fish and have slaw and baked potato with it. My order that evening was a fish fillet sandwich for $2.25. You also can get it with fries for $2.75. Or you can get side orders of fish for $2.50, coleslaw for 90 cents, fries for 75 cents, hush puppies for 75 cents, baked potato for 75 cents or onion rings for $1.35.
Owner and manager Eunice Novick told me she is hoping to build up a carryout business. She said she will try to keep the menu simple. The fish, she said, are freshwater white fish from Mississippi. “They’re never more than a week away from the water.”
Shore Lunch no longer operates in Columbia Mall.
Andrew’s Steakhouse Is Gem Along U.S. Highway 2
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SEPTEMBER 14, 1988
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RUGBY, N.D.—“Now are you sure this is real crab—not just some of that reincarnated stuff restaurants foist off as crab?”
That’s exactly what I asked the waitress at Andrew’s Steakhouse in Rugby, N.D. She assured me it was for real. So I ordered the special, written in fluorescent letters on one of those shiny blackboards. “Snow King Crab, $9.95.” Constant Companion looked over the menu and at length decided to—yep, you guessed it—try the ribs ($7.95).
We were pleasantly surprised when we saw the dining room. It’s spacious, colorful and upscale. The red carpeting has a gold-and-blue design. Cloths on the tables are yellow, and there are blue cloth napkins. On each table, there also is a slender vase of yellow or white silk flowers. And there are plastic lace placemats.
We were the first customers into the restaurant, which opens at 5 P.M. Before we finished eating, though, there
were seven tables filled, and it still was early. Most people were dressed casually, but this is a place worthy of your good dress or his new necktie.
Our waitress, Lisa, came on with assurance, which I like. She wasn’t one of those scared rabbit types. She easily handled all of the tables and was doing a few extra chores on the side. She did two unusual things. First, she took a cloth and wiped the “Snow” off the “Snow King Crab,” written on the specials board. Second, she came in with a vodka bottle and watered the plants in the dining room.
Curiosity got the best of me, and I asked her why she changed the special. She said the cook had just told her it should be “snow crab” or “king crab” but not “snow king crab,” because there is no such thing. I didn’t ask her about the vodka bottle, but I assume it was water she put on the plants.
While we pondered these things, we took a quick walk around the hexagonal-shaped salad bar in the middle of the dining room. This is a rather small salad bar, but those with fewer items usually are fresher. There was some very good garlic bread there, and along with the usual array, I was pleased to find olives.
Our entrees arrived in good time, and they were good. Very, very good. My crab legs were plentiful and were served with real rendered butter with lemon over a tiny flame. CC enjoyed his ribs and was glad to have the sauce on the side so he could see what he was eating.
We wished we had a bone plate. Instead, we used saucers from coffee cups we didn’t intend to use. We piled them high with crab shells and rib bones.
Grand Forks: A History of American Dining in 128 Reviews Page 3