Left Guard Supper Club – Twin Cities Music Highlights

The Left Guard was a Supper Club located at 7717 Nicollet Ave. in Richfield, just over the Bloomington border.

The building started out as a Kroger grocery store, then a Piggly Wiggly.

Image courtesy Richfield Historical Society

THE LEFT GUARD

In the early 1960s, Green Bay Packers Fuzzy Thurston, a left guard, and Max McGee, a wide receiver, and entrepreneur William “Bill” Martine opened an establishment called the Left Guard in Menasha, Wisconsin, where the Packers hung out. They created a chain of several Left Guard restaurants throughout Wisconsin, and a steakhouse with the same name in Richfield.

Max also had his own place called the Left End in Manitowoc, Wisconsin.

Image from the blog of David Galassie

The keychain below gives the names of the owners as Fuzzy (Fred Thurston), Max (McGee), Bill (Martine), and Karl (Kassulke, a Viking).

Image courtesy Michele Leahy DeVoll

Two Great Restaurants Under One Roof! One was called Martine’s, after Bill Martine, the only non-football player.

Ad courtesy Richfield Historical Society via Terry Ahlstrom

The Left Guard in Richfield drew celebrities and members of the Vikings back in 1973 to 1975. It looks like they had the sense to replace the Packers colors with the Vikings!

Image courtesy Ozzy Judge

MAXIMILLIAN’S AND CHI CHI’S

In 1975 the Left Guard group broke up and the Richfield property was divided into two different restaurants, served by one kitchen.

MAXIMILLIAN’S

From 1978 to 1982, half of the property was a private club called Maximillian’s, run by Max McGee. Max’s, as it was called by employees and regulars, was a posh disco – it is said that Time magazine called it the hottest singles bar in America at one point.

The descriptions below come from comments on Facebook and from an article by Karin Winegar of the Minneapolis Star (February 8, 1980).

Originally a private club open only to members and their guests, on slower nights you could buy a one night “membership” from $10 to $25 in 1979. Adjusting for inflation, it could get pricey just to walk through the door, not to mention valet parking and coat check. By 1980 Winegar reported that it was open to the public unless the house was packed, in which case it reverted to membership only. An annual membership was $100 the first year, and $50 each year after that. Membership perks included admittance to ski trips, fashion shows, and the like. It had a strict dress code of no jeans, turning away celebrities like Judy Carne in $300 denim, so they say.

Winegar went all out to describe Maximillian’s: “earth tones, plants, wicker, and the city’s largest macrame wall hangings” made up the decor. Then there’s the extravagantly dressed clientele, including visiting athletes, “numerous tall, elegantly dressed, hyperactive ladies who model occasionally,” and private disco instructors who “steal a quick turn on the floor for pyrotechnics before the crowd ruins it all.”

Friday night – date night – was the busiest, more than Saturday night. “If you sincerely want to dance, you have no business being at Max’s on weekends after 9 pm or so when DJ Ron Jackson spins the first songs out across the under-sized brass dance floor…. Fortunately, not everyone is a good dancer; there are thumpers and clumpers and water-treaders out there until closing each night.”

CHI-CHI’s

The other side of the building became the first of the Chi-Chi’s Mexican Restaurant chain. It was started by Marno McDermott, who named the place after his wife’s nickname (which, in Spanish, means breasts..). Chi-Chi’s was the area’s first sit-down Mexican restaurant and an instant hit – people would wait two hours for a table. At the time the price of beef was rising, and Mexican food was cheaper to produce. It’s said that in 1976, both restaurants made $4 million.

Image courtesy Karla Wilkie

In her 1980 article in the Star, Karin Winegar was not impressed with the food at Chi-Chi’s, calling it “amazingly bland.” “Large portions and promising descriptions do not overcome a general lack of body, texture and seasoning. And unfortunately, the service – by harried young men in tuxedos – is among the slowest in the city.” Perhaps Ms. Winegar had accidentally tasted real Mexican food….

Image courtesy Scott Glenn

In about 1982 or 1983, McGee and McDermott sold their interests in both places and the franchise rights in Minnesota for the Chi-Chi’s restaurants to Counsel Corporation. Of his original investment of about $250,000, McGee is said to have sold his interest for about $10 million.

At the same time, Maximillian’s was closed and the Chi-Chi’s portion was expanded to the former Maximilian’s side of the building.

From this first location, Chi-Chi’s grew to 237 locations by 1986.

THE END OF CHI-CHIs

But competition dug in and the number of locations fell to 144 by 2002. Chi-Chi’s filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in October 2003.

In November 2003, Chi-Chi’s was hit with the largest hepatitis A outbreak in U.S. history, with at least four deaths and 660 other victims of illness in the Pittsburgh area, including high school students who caught the disease from the original victims. The hepatitis was traced back to green onions at the Chi-Chi’s at Beaver Valley Mall near Monaca, Pennsylvania, about 30 miles northwest of Pittsburgh. Chi-Chi’s settled the hepatitis A lawsuits by July 2004. At the time the suits were settled, Chi-Chi’s had only 65 restaurants, fewer than half of the number of four years prior.

In August 2004, Outback Steakhouse bid $42.5 million for the rights to buy its choice of Chi-Chi’s 76 properties, but did not purchase the Chi-Chi’s name, operations, or recipes. On the weekend of September 18, 2004, Chi-Chi’s closed all 65 of its remaining restaurants.

JUNBO

The building’s last iteration was the JunBo Restaurant.

Jung Bo Restaurant, February 25, 2012. Image courtesy Shayne Hanson

The building was demolished on March 30-31, 2012, as documented by Brian Carlson.

The existing Menard’s next door was also demolished and a new Menard’s was constructed that same year. The former Left Guard site was in the parking lot.

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