Are there any Packers-friendly barsin Southeast Minnesota where one can enjoy tonight's big game? A2
Dear Answer Man, are there any Packers-friendly bars in the Rochester area where one can enjoy tonight's big Green Bay victory?
No.
Seriously, you're going to have to make a run for the border if you want to truly enjoy a beer and the game tonight at 7:30 p.m. One option is the Top Hat bar in Nelson, your basic hole-in-the-wall just a few minutes over the bridge from Wabasha, where everybody knows your name even when they've never seen you before, and even fans in Vikings jerseys are treated well. My wife and I stopped there last weekend and purple-clad fans — not us! — were treated with respect and dignity. They just covered up their Vikings jerseys at appropriate moments.
If you must stick around Rochester, I've always found the crowd at Dooley's more interested in fun than Packers hate; Buffalo Wild Wings has enough kids in the room to ensure a higher standard of behavior; Tilly's Tavern in Oronoco is intense but good-humored on game days; Whistle Binkies draws a more catholic crowd, not so "homer"; and Beetle's, my neighborhood bar, will be quite purple-oriented but tolerable, with really good popcorn.
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But wait! I asked for help on Twitter and a fan passed along an app called Packers Everywhere, which identifies Packers-friendly bars, and it lists Glynner's Pub and Brothers Bar & Grill in Rochester.
Have some other last-minute tips on where to tipple and enjoy the game? Go on Twitter, use the secret handshake #rochmnpackers and let's network.
But Vikings fans, please, stow your horns. Cheeseheads are people, too.
Dear Answer Man, I've been trying to find any info on an old cafe called the Queen City Cafe that was here in Rochester, at 124 S. Broadway. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.
As always, I turned to my local restaurant history guru, Alan Calavano, and he had the facts at his fingertips: The regally named Queen City Cafe was on the northeast corner of South Broadway and Zumbro Street — now Second Street — from 1891 until at least 1904. It was owned by William C. Holtz. After some ownership changes, it was called the Queen City Restaurant as of 1923, later the Queen City Cafeteria and then in 1935 the Queen City Bar & Cafe.
The next year, a guy named Cy apparently had enough of the Queen City thing and renamed the bar and cafe for himself. In 1938 and for 10 years thereafter, it was Jerry's Bar & Cafe, and in 1949, the building's long history of food, drink and conviviality came to an end when it was demolished and replaced by O'Connor's Men's Wear.
Since I'm on a restaurant kick today, I'll mop up a few items from recent columns. A reader sent a note regarding the long-ago Chicken Delight restaurant in the Miracle Mile Shopping Center in Rochester; Alan corrects that reader's spelling of the owner's name to John Von Feldt, who opened his first restaurant in the shopping center in 1954, called the Miracle Restaurant. The Von Feldt Foods business also owned the truck stop on U.S. 63 south of Rochester for a time.
And last of all, one of my most loyal readers, a guy named Auxil, sent this note from Brooklyn:
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"Your columns always inspire me. Yesterday's recollection about Chicken Delight, long before there was a KFC gleam in the Colonel's eye, reminded me of the Chicken Delight jingle that went something like this ... "Don't scrub that skillet, don't wash that pan, just pick up the phone and call the man. Oooh, what flavor, you'll love every bite, don't cook tonight, call Chicken Delight."
