Finally, a

restaurant

of her own

By KURT NESBITT

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM -- After 20 years in the restaurant business, Joni Ahlness will have a place to call her own.

And while her place, Joni's Restaurant and Catering, at 24 N. Minnesota St., bears her name, the actual operation is a family restaurant in many ways.

First, there's the menu. Many of the items available are dishes Ahlness has cooked for her family for years.

And then there's the history of cooking that Ahlness learned from her mother and practiced with her sister.

"When I was growing up, I liked to come up with my own recipes," she said. "I made donuts. And after my mother would pull the garden, I'd make onion rings."

When Joni's Restaurant and Catering finally opens, Ahlness, her husband, her two sons, one son's wife and the other's girlfriend will run the restaurant.

"I feel now like I now have my own home," Ahlness said as her husband and a worker put finishing touches on the restaurant's interior. "I spend more time here than my own home."

For Ahlness, the restaurant is the latest venture in her career.

At the age of 14, she got her first job as a dishwasher at the Wagon Wheel in Essig, followed the restaurant's owner to New Ulm when the business became the Glockenspiel Haus. During that time, Ahlness worked her way up from dishwasher to waitress to bookkeeper to manager.

Ahlness then went to the Dougout, a New Ulm restaurant that was destroyed by fire two years ago, after working a year in a factory. She was its manager until the fire. She then started a catering business that used the kitchen of the Gibbon Ballroom as a base and stayed there until moving to the downtown location nearly one month ago.

When the doors open -- Ahlness expects it to be up and running by late this month, but certainly by December -- Joni's Restaurant and Catering will face its share of hurdles. Ahlness said the two biggest challenges will be "making sure everything is arranged and making sure the people working for me know what they're doing."

She plans to meet the challenge of establishing a business by offering something new.

"Let's put it this way -- any time a new place opens up, they're all busy because [customers] are looking for something new. Everyone has a niche. Every restaurant has a specialty."

Ahlness said her niche is family-style home cooking and catering. Traditional breakfast fare features pancakes and omelettes. The menu also includes take-offs on old Dougout favorites like the sourdough chicken melt, Swedish meatballs, grilled chicken breast and home-made lasagna.

Ahlness said the new restaurant will boast fresh-made pasta and a couple vegetarian dishes too. She also experiments with new ideas.

"I like being creative and trying different things," she said. "I don't cook by recipes. I cook by looks, texture and taste."

Ahlness gets calls from local businesses asking when she'll be open.

"You have to have good food, hot food, be on time and be pleasant," Ahlness said when asked how to earn a good reputation as a caterer.

The space, built partially on the site of what used to be Pagellini's Pizza, seats roughly 100 people and has space in the back for private rental.