Lyle's Cafe in Winthrop filled with good stories, great food
Date Modified: 04/15/2010 8:51 AM
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Lyle's Cafe
Address: Highway 19, Winthrop, Minn.
Hours: Open seven days a week. Sunday and Monday, 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.; Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, 6:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.; Wednesday and Saturday, 6:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Known for: Homemade pies.
Most-requested pies: Pecan, sour cream raisin and blueberry.
Local favorite: Cheeseburgers. 100 percent beef on homemade bun.
Cost of a cheeseburger basket with French fries and cole slaw: $6.95.
Call them at: (507) 647-3030
WINTHROP, Minn. — Lyle's Cafe is one of those places you could easily miss.
It's set back from the highway a bit in a non-descript building, with no big blinking billboard to pull people in.
Yet for somewhere around 60 years, the cafe has been serving food to travelers who wander in off Highway 19 in Winthrop.
Emma Ronning built the place in the 1940s, said Barb Johnson, who has owned and operated Lyle's since January 2000. It was called the Cozy Corner Cafe then, she said. Ronning's granddaughter from the Cities stopped in once and shared memories of her grandmother and the cafe.
Old-timers like to talk about how they helped lay the cafe's brick foundation, Johnson said.
It's stories and tales that people share that keep Johnson coming to work every day.
"I just love it," she said. "Every single day you get a memory or a story."
Johnson grabs a white, well-used guest book filled with names of people from across the state, the nation and even the world. She's had visitors from England and Texas, Spain and Florida, Denmark and Washington.
"It is really a popular spot," Johnson said.
Most of her customers come off Highway 19. They're from Marshall and the Twin Cities, Pipestone and South Dakota.
Politicians have also been known to stop by.
"Jesse Ventura sat in that booth," Johnson said, pointing. Ventura was dressed casual and kept to himself. Word was that he was in the area looking to buy a horse ranch, she said.
Sen. Kathy Sheran has signed the guestbook as have staffers for the Al Franken for Senate campaign.
Johnson doesn't hide her political preference. She's a DFLer and displays a black-and-white photograph of Hubert Humphrey with her extended family in her parents' home. She's the Sibley County DFL county chairwoman.
Johnson said she doesn't talk politics with diners. Instead, she chats about the weather, her children and the history of Lyle's cafe.
Original owner Ronning owned the cafe for two years and almost didn't sign the papers when she sold it to Curt and Pearl Eckberg, Johnson said. The Eckbergs ran the cafe for two years before selling it to Lyle and Marge Saxton. They named the cafe Lyle's and Marge ran it for 38 years.
Lyle died young, Johnson said. He worked the night shift at the cafe — it was open 24 hours then — and Marge came in around 4 or 5 a.m. to relive him. He went home to shovel snow and had a heart attack.
But the cafe in his name lives on.
Lyle's Cafe was featured on WCCO Radio's Boone and Erickson Show and Good Morning America filmed at Lyle's Cafe. Minnesota Monthly gave Lyle's Cafe "the Best Down Home Cooking Award" in 2001. The cafe was made popular by a 1985 book, "The Pie Lady of Winthrop," by two Minneapolis Star Tribune writers. The book contained stories that had appeared in the Star Tribune.
Johnson grew up in Winthrop and learned to make Lyle's chili while working for the competition at the Princess Cafe when she was 13. She got the job to buy one of those brown suede jackets with the sweater sleeves. She worked there seven years.
When she bought Lyle's in 2000, she opened the recipe box and found her mom's apple coffee cake recipe. Her mother, Alma, went to the same church as Barb.
Lyle's Cafe is known for real food, Johnson said. All the soups are homemade. She serves real gravy and real mashed potatoes. Her homemade scalloped potatoes are a treat with real cream.
"It's not an Applebees, it's real food," she said.
Lyle's Cafe has daily specials and seating for 75. The back room is furnished like grandma's parlor with lace curtains, green placemats and two couches. The front room is more like a busy kitchen with booths and bar stools. Her mother's collection of tea cups fill shelves in the front room and there's worn copies of Betty Crocker's Cookbook and the Good Housekeeping Illustrated Cookbook by the bookshelf.
Johnson does catering and has hosted groom's suppers, bridal showers and small wedding receptions.
The Chamber of Commerce meets there each Thursday and coffee groups come in each morning, she said. Coffee is 65 cents from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m.
Johnson serves breakfast anytime and said the everything omelet with hashbrowns, ham, onion, green peppers, tomatoes and bacon is her most requested breakfast dish.
"It's good," she said. The omelet with toast is $7.49.
Her favorite thing to make is Swedish meatballs "since I'm a Johnson," she said.
Several of her customers come once or twice a year. They want to sit in the same booth each time they visit. Some met or became engaged at Lyle's.
On March 6, a marriage proposal occurred in booth three.
History continues to be made at Lyle's Cafe, Johnson said.
— Janet Kubat Willette