Minnesota – Lake Wobegon Trail – Day 4

On the last day of this bike trail, we would ride our way back to St. Joseph where we left the car. With one last visit to the Albany Home Bakery, telling the kind ladies in the bakery goodbye, we packed up the bikes and headed for St. Joseph. The mileage today was much lighter. It was just 15 miles to St. Joseph from Albany, but we had an option of some additional miles depending on how we felt once we arrived in St. Joseph.

It was a cloudy, overcast morning as we left Albany, and very cool. When we left the Airbnb, it was 60 degrees.

We made good time in reaching St. Joseph, but were too early to check in the our B&B. We unloaded some of our baggage at the car and headed to the corner taco restaurant for a quick lunch. We sat outside with a view of beautiful College of St. Benedict.

Our plan was to get a few more miles of riding in while we waited for our room at the B&B. We started off in the direction of Waite Park, on the outskirts of Saint Cloud, but soon realized that route was taking us into an urban area with many road crossings and heavy traffic. By this time, the clouds had cleared and the sun was out, and we knew a ride back along the trail in the direction we had just traveled, would give us more beautiful views and the extra miles we wanted. Plus, when we ate dinner along the trail last evening at the Fisher’s Club, we noticed they had a great dessert menu that we were too full to try. A piece of pie beside the lake at the Fisher’s Club sounded like a great way to justify an 18 mile round trip!

As we rode back, I took additional pictures since the sky was so pretty even though some of these I’d already photographed this morning, lol!

Fisher’s Club opened in 1932 and was owned by the Fisher family for many years. From 2005-2012, Garrison Keillor was a co-owner. Fisher’s is a supper club, and these were very popular in the 1930’s in the rural Midwest. Most sprang up at the end of prohibition and Fisher’s is no exception. There is no actual membership required for this club, anyone can eat at the supper club and many times it’s the only place to eat in the little towns where they exist. Entering Fisher’s was like stepping back in time.

It’s largely unchanged on the inside, and as Mrs. Fisher once said, “the only thing that changes around here is the light bulbs.” Many supper clubs began as bottle clubs, where customers were permitted to bring in their “preferred” drink to accompany their meal, and Fisher’s was one of those. The restaurant still has the little wooden lockers that were once used by the men of the community to store their bottles until their next visit. They still contain the paper strips taped to the top of each locker with the name of the man to which they were assigned. These lockers were often handed down within families for several generations. It was really interesting to see. Though they are unused and unneeded now, they are a glimpse of a time gone by.

The red wallpaper, now famous because it was installed in 1959 still decorates the walls and part of the ceiling. I think if they tried to change that, they would meet some resistance.

Fisher’s has managed to hold on and is now a family-friendly place, where neighbors catch up with one another while enjoying really good food in a hometown atmosphere. We had eaten there last night in Jimmy’s continuing quest for walleye! He loved it! They still use the top-secret breading recipe for the walleye that was developed in the 1930’s, and they will not share that secret! The potato salad took one whole summer to perfect and is a crowd favorite.

And one other thing about Fisher’s, they are extremely nice here. “Minnesota nice”! We had ridden on our bikes to eat here last night, and it began to rain while we were eating. By the time we finished our meal, it was really coming down and we had 6 miles to travel back to our Airbnb. The owner, realizing we were on bikes as we paid our bill, offered to drive us back to Albany in her car. She would have left the restaurant on this very busy night, where she was working the cash register, refilling drinks, carrying out food, etc. to drive 2 strangers that she’d never met and would most likely never see again to the next town so we wouldn’t get wet. It was very kind of her and definitely above and beyond our expectations of good service, lol. We thanked her profusely and told her we’d ridden in rain before and didn’t mind. But we were so blessed by her offer. It was very kind and just another example of how nice the people are in Minnesota!

But that was last night. Today, we’d made the ride back in sunny weather to try the pie. We each ordered a piece and enjoyed it on the deck overlooking the lake with a cup of percolator-made coffee in a heavy old school restaurant mug! It was delicious and I’ll admit that as we ate our pie, I tried to Google the recipe, but could not find it.