5 minute read
Pancakes and the pandemic: Saved by the meatloaf special
BY AMY RODELIUS as told to Rand Middleton
Steve and Amy Rodelius have owned and operated Frieda’s Restaurant in downtown Willmar since 1994. As it was for managers and employees of restaurants and bars everywhere, the shadow of COVID-19 cast a gloom and strain throughout 2020 and into 2021.
The little eatery sits on a one-block oneway stretch of Benson Avenue as it spins off the U.S. Highway 12 bypass on the west edge of downtown. With its bar-stool counter snug to the grill — a throwback to the 50s — the Willmar landmark serves food and comfort in equal portions. For many, it is a warm kitchen away from home.
Speaking beside a sizzling grill that turns out flapjacks and bacon in the morning and cheeseburgers and fries at lunchtime, Amy recounted the challenging 12 months to Rand Middleton on March 17, the anniversary of the first COVID lockdown.
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In Wednesday, March 18, 2020, we were closed. There was no indoor dining. It felt like the governor just tossed us into the air and no one knew what to do.
We were supposed to shut down but we didn’t know what to do. We let a few people come in on Wednesday, and then on Thursday, the state department called and said, “Shut it down.”
After 26 years of serving people inside our restaurant, we were told we couldn’t do it that way anymore. We didn’t know what to do. This was all we knew.
We closed the restaurant on Thursday. Then on Friday we took the day off because we didn’t know anything
more. Saturday morning, we got up and I looked at Steve and said, ‘I’m going to work. Either we can serve one person a to-go breakfast, or 10 or 20, but we gotta do what we gotta do.’
So then we went downtown. I made a post on Facebook stating that we would be open for to-go orders. That’s what we did and people were very receptive. When people came in to get their orders they social-distanced while waiting.
We had to lay off our six employees. The rest of March, April and May, Steve and I kept going to work keeping a positive attitude. It kept getting more and more busy so we had Jerry come back.
During COVID, breakfast was usually quiet but noon hours were crazy busy. We’d get here and the phone would start ringing by 9 a.m. We wrote the to-go orders down as they came in and then lined them up on the grill hood.
People began calling right away because they wanted to make sure they got the noon special. One of our customers, an older gentleman in his 80s came flying around the corner and got pulled over. The cop asked: ‘Why are you in such a hurry?’ And he said, “I’ve got to get to Frieda’s before all the noon specials are gone.’ So they let him go without a ticket.
On June 1 the city closed the road out front and set out picnic tables so we could serve customers outside. That went really, really well. The first day of outdoor dining our oldest daughter Sarah came home from Champlin and helped serve to make sure we made it through a really busy day.
A year removed from the first shutdown, waitresses scurried to deliver orders around 10 a.m. March 20 as Steve Rodelius worked the grill and toasters.
Rand Middleton
The downtown committee really loved the traffic on the bypass seeing all those people and thought it was really good for the downtown. So they want to have a few picnic tables across the street on the grass where we can serve meals in nice weather.
On a typical Tuesday pre-COVID, the Meatloaf Special averaged around 30 orders. During the first shutdown we would fill up to 80 orders.
Things just kept getting busier and we were able to bring everyone back to work. We worked all summer long and then we were told we could go up to 50 percent occupancy indoors. With customers outside and inside that got hard. We had to try and keep an eye on everyone out there and in here.
You have tablecloths and then there is bird poop occasionally. I would wipe it up and joke with the customers that our governor thinks it is better for us to eat outside as I cleaned it up. That would draw a laugh.
When fall came we were limited to the 50 percent in the restaurant. On November 17, they shut everything
down again through the middle of January. We went back to takeout.
On Jan. 2 we just closed the restaurant for a week. We were both so exhausted from filling all the to-go orders. It was hard with just Steve, I and Jerry.
Keeping the orders straight was difficult. Everytime we figured out a new system, they changed the rules. You’d get close to running smoothly again and they’d move the goalposts further out. It was frustrating.
But we know our job well. We are trained to bleach everything, we are trained to keep everything clean but it was frustrating because we couldn’t do the job we knew how to do. But we had to follow the rules.
Volume now is about where it was before the virus. We’ve been really, really fortunate. We were so fortunate that the city of Willmar, the businesses in Willmar were so good to us small businesses in town. They supported us.
We got incredible support from folks like Terwisscha Construction, Jennie-O, the police department. We had huge orders from the utilities which once called on a Tuesday for 43 noon specials. So we are so very thankful for all the support.
A shortstack of pancakes at Frieda’s Cafe in downtown Willmar.
Donna Middleton
