Steak and Ale was a meat (and seafood) and potatoes restaurant located at 2801 Southtown Drive in Bloomington.  There were two other restaurants in St. Louis Park and Roseville.

The company was a chain out of Dallas that started in 1966 by an entrepreneur named Norman Brinker.  By 1975, ads for help at the Bloomington site were being published.  The chain of 111 restaurants in the U.S. and Canada was acquired by Pillsbury in 1976 for $100 million in Pillsbury stock.  Brinker was kept on as Steak and Ale Chairman, and would later become an executive at Pillsbury, starting Bennigan’s, Jack-in-the-Box, and Chili’s.

 

 

A food review from 1977 wasn’t too kind to the restaurant’s decor, saying “It is best to ignore the pretentious architecture, the fact that the menu is printed on an imitation meat cleaver and the phony fires that are crackling in the fireplace…  I understand the chain’s 100-plus restaurants are constructed in the same English-manor-house-cum-castle style with a phony turret on one side.  It is a tribute to the determination of Americans to eat in restaurants built to look like something else.”  The review dinged the place for chilling the Bass ale, as everyone knows, such is served at room temperature in Jolly Old England.  But he approved of the miniskirts on the waitresses.  As for the food, skip the steak and just go for the crab legs.  (Joe Blade, Minneapolis Star, January 5, 1977)

Scott Smith loaned me this “menu” to photograph, and it really was metal and it really did weigh a ton!

 

Here’s a singing commercial from 1978 that our friend Jeff Lonto found that gives the spirit of the place!

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MUSIC AT THE STEAK & ALE

A blurb in 1977 says that there was live music and dancing in the lounge (apart from the restaurant)  from 8:30 to 12:45, with drinks from $1.35 to $1.80.

The first listing found in a Minneapolis Tribune entertainment calendar was on November 25, 1977, with a band called Twighlite Central.  That doesn’t mean there wasn’t entertainment before that, of course.

The mid 1980s featured bands such as Water and Wine, the Core with Patty Peterson and Steve Faison, and the Wallstreet Band.    The ’90s brought Solution, the River Rats, Full Moon, the Whirlies, HeadFirst, and Bourbon Street, to name a few.

Drummer extraordinaire Bobby Vandell remembers:

Steak and Ale had a run as a very active live music venue. We had a band called Everyday People/Harlow that worked there five nights a week and packed the place. We had people standing in the aisles to see our Wiz show that Corliss Dale Forestieri choreographed, and sang so great in, Howard Arthur played guitar in and was music director. Stephen Faison and I shared the Lion character duties! It was a killer show that was very popular.  We took it to Los Angeles for about a three month run at the Bonaventure Hotel in downtown LA. Other bands worked there as well … Class Action was an all- star band that included Ricky Peterson, Patty Peterson, Stephen Faison, Candy Robles (Candy Anderson then), Rick Houle, Rick Cornish, and Glenn Swanson. They were killin’ and packed the place too! The Steak and Ale, with its tiered seating, made a perfect live music venue … And that it did! Great memories from those days.

Patty Peterson remembers also how her bands “packed houses six nights a week and people lined up out the door to get in.”

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Below are some photos of the Doug Maynard Band from about 1981 taken at the Steak and Ale.

 

 

Erik on Facebook remembers great memories working there in the late ’80s early ’90s, working busy Saturday nights while Patty Peterson and her band played in the bar doing great Anita Baker covers. 

Singer Connie Olson remembers singing there many times.

 

 

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ABBA AT THE STEAK AND ALE

In 2006, ABBA’s Benny Andersson was in town and had hired local Swedish-born student Martin Bertilsson to drive them around and show them the sights.  Martin tells his story on YouTube about the night he recommended the Steak and Ale to one of the world’s biggest pop stars!  (Thanks to Luke Taylor for the tip!)

 

Steak and Ale closed in about 2008.

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COWBOY JACK’S

The building went on to become Cowboy Jack’s Bar and Restaurant:  “Raucous hangout features booze, casual grub & regular live bands in a rustic Western-themed space.”