Eitzen cafe serves 'nothing fancy, just good food'
By Heather Thorstensen
hthorstensen@agrinews.com
Date Modified: 03/01/2010 2:11 PM
E-mail article | Print version
Maggie's Dugout
Address: 400 East Main Street, Eitzen, Minn.
Hours: Monday through Friday 11 a.m. to 2 p.m; Wednesday supper hours are usually 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. but they will be closed on Wednesdays during Lent; Thursday 5 p.m. to 9 p.m., only serving pizza; Saturday and Sunday 5 p.m. To 10 p.m.
Best sellers: It's hard to say. Owner Maggie Kruse has heard the fish is the best around, but she's heard the same about the salad bar. Battered or broiled cod is usually $8.95 but it's $8 as a Friday night special. Soup and salad bar is $5.50.
Call them at: (507) 495-3363
EITZEN, Minn. – Maggie's Dugout is one of those restaurants with a name that fits it to a tee.
Owner Maggie Kruse has run the place for nearly 25 years and lives in the apartment above the restaurant. The "Dugout" part fits well because the restaurant is in the basement of the building. People coming in the front door are greeted by a flight of stairs to descend before they actually enter the restaurant.
Although not officially included in their hours of operation, Kruse opens up early to let in a group of regulars, mostly retired farmers, for morning coffee. There's about 15 to 25 of them, and women will group around one table while the men sit at another.
Her customers are friendly and mostly local, although she does get fishermen and hunters in spring and fall. People bring their kids to eat there, or they come to play cards.
"I could sit and play cards all day," Kruse said, and she likes to play classic country music from her television. Some of the sound is absorbed by the restaurant's brown, carpeted walls.
Before she owned the restaurant, Kruse lived on a beef and crop farm with her husband and four children a mile out of Eitzen. Her husband died in 1983 and she saw the restaurant as a chance to make a living for herself and her kids.
"I always loved cooking. When the chance came up to buy this place, I jumped in," she said.
She serves American food: "Nothing fancy, just good food" reads the take-out menu. Everything may be ordered to go, prepared by her staff of four or five. The restaurant seats up to 50 people.
A monthly menu customers can take home or see posted around town lists Wednesday through Friday lunch specials. February's specials range from $4.75 for chicken and gravy over biscuits, salad and a cookie to $5.75 for roast beef, mashed potatoes and gravy plus green beans and coleslaw.
The dinner menu has its own regular players. Batter-fried chicken is the special every Wednesday night. A quarter of a chicken goes for $6.75 while a half chicken is priced at $8. All white meat can be ordered for an extra 50 cents. Cooks get a break from the regular menu on Thursday nights, when only pizza is served. Pizzas can be customized with toppings from sauerkraut to pineapple. Cod is featured Friday nights for $8 and Saturday's special is the prime rib for $13.95.
The regular menu offers steaks, chicken, seafood, sandwiches and sides. All dinners come with soup, salad bar and choice of potato. A "Lighter Side" section of the menu doesn't come with those extras, but most are served with toast.
The popular salad bar includes macaroni salad, potato salad, coleslaw, broccoli, cauliflower and carrots in ranch dressing, cottage cheese, six or seven other salads and quite a few toppings. Chili and some soups, like chicken noodle and vegetable beef, are made in house.
Kruse's potato salad attracts people from as far away as La Crosse, Wis.. People pick it up to take to parties. Her daughters, Nancy and Karen, help out with the restaurant, and work in a shop behind it for a Dubuque-based industrial supply company. The shop was built by Maggie's late son, Greg, who died a few years ago. A stained glass light depicting his semi-truck and dog is on the wall at Maggie's, a kind of tribute. Maggie's third daughter, Lynne, works in Seattle.
— Heather Thorstensen