Golden Harvest in Utica building reputation with great food
Date Modified: 07/22/2010 10:01 AM
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Golden Harvest Cafe and Bar
Address: 135 Highway 14 West, Utica, Minn.
Hours: 6:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday to Thursday; 6:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday.
Best Seller: Friday's fish fry specials. The lunch portion of their lightly-battered haddock is $6.99; dinner is $9.99 and includes choice of potato and salad bar.
Call them at: (507) 932-5300
UTICA, Minn.— Dave and Carol Twernbold run the restaurant that greets drivers as they enter Utica from eastbound Highway 14.
Golden Harvest Cafe and Bar, formerly the Golden Horn, has been under their ownership since March.
It's the second restaurant owned by the Twernbolds. They became proprietors of Country Cafe in nearby Eyota in July 2006. Carol said she and Dave wanted the second restaurant to expand.
"It's something we both enjoy doing," she said.
They also have a third business, Lawn Leprechaun Lawn Care.
Their changes to Golden Harvest include expanding the hours and the menu.
"Our menu is a lot larger," said Carol.
Dave does a lot of the cooking. Carol handles the book work and manages staff. The two got their start in the restaurant business from working in the Perkins restaurant chain.
"Here, we have very loyal customers," Carol said, adding that's great because not much else is in the immediate area to attract customers.
The place is popular with farmers and people from the surrounding communities of St. Charles and Lewiston.
That's why they changed the name to the Golden Harvest, Carol said. Dave wanted a name that reflects their farm community.
"It's more of a little country flavor," Carol said.
They've been getting a lot of compliments on their new sign, which depicts a farm scene complete with a windmill and rolling hills.
Breakfast is served all day. Options include three-egg omelettes, basic egg breakfasts, egg specialties, pancakes, waffles, French toast, biscuits and gravy or a breakfast croissant.
Three lunch specials are served daily. Two are always the same: chopped beef steak or the roast beef special while the third option changes. Lunch includes batterfried walleye, hot-open faced sandwiches, pitas, salads, sandwiches and burgers. Their hamburgers are broiled for a grilled flavor.
They have nightly dinner specials. Popular choices areSaturday's steak and shrimp for $14.99 and all-you-can-eat shrimp on Sunday for $13.99. On Monday, the special is liver and onions, Tuesdays it's two broasted pork chops, Wednesdays it's is all-you-can-eat BBQ ribs, Thursday it's all-you-can-eat broasted chicken and Friday it's what Carol considers the biggest seller of the place, a fish fry special.
Waitress Sue Christie makes all the soup, except the clam chowder, and some desserts. They offer one soup daily. One of Carol's favorite is chicken and dumpling.
Their fresh strawberry pie and graham cracker crust cream pies are made in the restaurant. Other staples are French silk pie, carrot cake and chocolate cake.
Like Christie and other members of the staff, Cheryl Ehlenfeldt, daughter of former owners Larry and Wilma Bushman, stayed on to work for the Twernbolds.
Her parents ran the restaurant for 35 years and still live close by, she said.
Dave and Carol have been working on updating and redecorating. Dave put in new kitchen appliances. Customers like the new window added to the seating area's back wall.
In the bar, they've added new paint, bar rail and chairs, decorations and two flat-screen televisions. They also started a daily Happy Hour that runs from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.
—Heather Thorstensen