PAT GARRY Bayside Tap & Steakhouse for you and the

Looking for a Valentine’s Day dinner destination? Look no further than Red Wing and plan a visit to Bayside Tap & Steakhouse. Featuring delicious steaks and seafood, Minnesota’s best martinis and award winning service, Bayside will have your table ready.

Owners Glen and Christy Witham have enjoyed the restaurant business for 35 years.

“ My chef is Jenney Esterby Morrell. She, along with my daughter Jenn Holtz, Mindy Keller, and Vee Baker, make up my management team,” said Glen Witham.

Bayside is a casual dining restaurant, featuring American cuisine for lunch and dinner. The Withams boast what they believe is the best steak in town — with their in-house, hand-cut choice ribeyes and strips. Another top item is the steak and blue salad, featuring Bayside’s own house blue cheese dressing.

One of the popular mainstay items is the ahi tuna steak, served rare with a special imported Japanese ginger wasabi glaze. This is also used on the house dragon wings, which is the Witham’s most popular wing item.

“Our burgers are a ½ pound, and our shrimp cocktail is the biggest U8-10 black tiger shrimp available on the market. We offer a bone-in porterhouse pork chop and a catch-of-the-month seafood item that changes every 30 days,” Witham explained.

Maybe the most requested dish is the potato bacon soup. It’s the house soup, made daily and available year-round.

Voted “Best Restaurant in Red Wing” last year, Witham credits his employees for the accolade.

“They are an awesome group that sincerely cares about customers’ dining experiences. They are proud of what they do, and I am very proud of them,” Glen added.

Bayside’s uniqueness is warranted in a number of ways. They are located in Red Wing, a beautiful town tucked in the bluffs along the Mississippi River. The venue offers outdoor seating, including a roof top deck that overlooks the river, the iconic Red Wing boat houses, Barns Bluff, Eisenhower Bridge and more. Along with the awesome views, the Withams offer a large selection of martinis: some include the caramel apple, the salted nut roll, the lemon drop, the traditional “James Bond dirty shaken, not stirred.”

The Withams’ most popular event is their Saturday afternoon meat raffle, which goes on through the winter months. It starts at 3 p.m. and is usually a full house. It is sponsored by the local Elks Club, so the money stays in Red Wing. The meat comes from an independent grocer in Red Wing (Koplin’s Market). There is usually a little something else going on, with a trivia T-shirt giveaway, or, occasionally, a guest wheel spinner might show up. It’s a fun time for all that attend, and it helps with the mid-winter cabin fever blues.

In 2023, the Withams are looking forward to a great year at Bayside. There is a whole new look on Old W. Main Street, including a brand new pedestrian bridge that ties the river walkway to the Mississippi.

“The area has evolved into a beautiful, river-friendly community, and we invite everyone to come check us out,” said Glen Witham.

Bayside Tap & Steakhouse is located at 1516 Old W. Main St., Red Wing. Call 651-388-1616 or visit baysidetapandsteakhouse.com to see the hours, menu and more.

When you hear the words “Valentine’s Day”, what feelings does it conjure up in you?

For some, it’s a warm feeling of excitement and anticipation for the holiday that celebrates one of the most worthwhile things on earth, love. For others, it may be sadness or longing for relationships lost. I personally know a few folks who think Valentine’s Day is a holiday made up by the greeting card industry to boost sales. And, as any good capitalist society does, other industries jumped on the bandwagon to get their slice of that love pie (which is most likely not true as it is thought to have begun being celebrated as a day of romance in the 14th century, long before Hallmark appeared on the scene).

And even some of you may be saying, “Feelings? What feelings?”. While Valentine’s Day may not tug at ever yone’s heartstrings, I have always looked forward to it.

This may partially be because it occurs just three days before my birthday. Growing up, Valentine’s Day always seemed like a warmup celebration for a day dedicated to something truly important: me. But despite a fairly cynical outlook on life, I do believe in love and its overwhelming power over all of us.

And I do mean all of us. It’s a universal feeling that knows no age, sex, race, gender, or even species. When you take all of that into consideration, it is no wonder that so many songs are themed around that everlasting subject; falling in love, falling out of love, losing love, loving love, hating love, longing for love, romantic love, platonic love, unrequited love … love.

Emotions can be hard for many of us to express with words alone. This is where the arts come in. The visual arts, dance, theater, music, etc. are all ways to express our emotions when words fail to do the job. It doesn’t take a music scholar to note the tremendous number of love songs that have been shared to the world.

But just exactly how many actually exist is a more elusive matter. I came across one study that suggested that 50% of all pop songs were about love. Another study, from 2018, depicted a chart that put the word “love” at the very top of the list when it came to appearing in song lyrics.

It beat out words such as “Oh”, “La”, “yeah”, and “Life” — by a lot. And a 2022 article from Billboard said that 9.6% of all Hot 100 No.

1’s had the word “love” in the title — not the entire song, just the title.

That list started in 1958. But a truly definitive answer to “How many love songs are out there?” just doesn’t really exist. This is because no one can agree on what a love song truly is. There are as many definitions of love out there as there are people in existence, so it would stand to reason that a bunch of differing opinions is all we really have to go on.

I decided to hone in on a few of those opinions for you here in Scene by asking one simple question around Southern Minnesota: “What makes a good love song?”

“It’s impossible to describe something so complex (love) in a 3-minute song, so generalities don’t cut it. Try to find a telling detail that spurs an emotion-tenderness, lust, gratitudeand work out from that detail: the way she crosses her legs; the way her presence makes you breathe differently. The devil’s in the details...”

- Kit Kildahl, Saint Peter, musician/songwriter/ singer as solo act as well as with Bad Liquor Management, Ace in the Whole, Minnesota

Barking Ducks, and occasional guest artist with City Mouse

“I love a song that’s hopeful and heartbreaking, or a song with a big, unexpected swell of emotion, or a song with nuanced and relatable lyrics that make me feel understood. It’s hard to pinpoint and define what is so impactful about music. You just know it is, ya know?”

-Tessa Weyhe, Brooklyn Park, art educator/ artist/all-around amazing person

“Well, there are so many different kinds of love songs to write, so it’s hard to say what’s best. But I like songs that highlight the hope aspect of falling in love. There’s vulnerability and fear and what ifs, but the “maybe this could be” flutter is what keeps us falling.”

-Bad Bad Hats, super awesome Minneapolisbased band comprised of Kerr y Alexander and Chris Hoge

“A good love song creates a deep melancholy longing to hold a faraway hand while drifting asleep in a window seat many time zones away or inspires a closely embraced impromptu twostep around the kitchen.”

- Liz Draper, Mankato, bassist extraordinaire as a solo act as well as with Soul Asylum, the Cactus Blossoms, Davina and the Vagabonds, Charlie Parr, and Low

“I agree with John Lennon that there are