New Madelia

restaurant is

a labor of love

By KURT NESBITT

Journal Staff Writer

MADELIA -- For some, just cooking a meal means manual labor.

But for Craig and Brenda Blackstad, the cooking was the easy part.

Two years ago, they purchased an old cafe in downtown Madelia that still had its tin ceiling moldings and began rebuilding it into their new restaurant, Main Street Cuisine.

The restaurant is so new that the Blackstads are still hiring waiters and waitresses and the sign that's supposed to hang outside the front door hasn't been raised yet.

But that's going to change.

"I want to make this a destination," said Craig, adding that he wants to attract out-of-town customers from New Ulm, Fairmont and Mankato.

The Blackstads chose to open a restaurant in Madelia because of family ties. A native of Hanska, Craig said Madelia was the town where his grandfather grew up and where his father went to school.

He decided to get into the restaurant business after he lost his job as a sales representative for the Brown and Williamson tobacco company.

Craig has some past restaurant experience, having worked for the Century Club in Mankato and the New Ulm Holiday Inn.

Practically everything inside Main Street Cuisine was envisioned and built by the Blackstads with the exception of the brick and the electrical system. Craig said he deliberately chose to put rock on the walls and cherry wood on the floors to create a more relaxed, artistic feeling.

He also designed the restaurant's menu to provide a break from fast food and chain restaurants. Cooking runs in Craig's family, and it's something he's always been good at. His favorite dishes to make are things Madelians can identify with -- simple things like ribs and walleye.

Diners can get most kinds of meats at Main Street Cuisine because the menu consists of prime rib dinners, steaks, salmon, walleye, shrimp and rib loin roast, soups, sandwiches, desserts, beer and wine. Craig said he didn't want too large a menu because he didn't want too many cooks

Craig also makes dishes that use gourmet sauces for some of the restaurant's daily specials. A recent example is a shrimp alfredo he served recently. He also makes all of Main Street Cuisine's sauces and salad dressings. He said he plans to get more steaks on the menu next month.

"Owning a restaurant is like milking cows," Craig said. "It's a lot of work."

The most popular dishes on the menu are the prime rib, the walleye and the fried chicken. Craig said he sells lots of salads and lots of soups and sandwiches during lunch. That's because of the Madelia business crowd, which doesn't like to be weighed down with a heavy meal, while his hometown crowd in Hanska prefers a heavier meal that it can work off in the field.

Main Street Cuisine opened Nov. 28. around the time Madelia held its annual Razzle Dazzle electric parade. For the Blackstads, it was a reservation-only night that sold 100 prime rib dinners, Craig said.

The restaurant is usually open at 11 a.m. seven days a week. It closes at 2 p.m. and reopens at 5 p.m. on most weekdays, closing for the night at 8 p.m. It stays open until 9 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. It closes at 8 p.m. on Sunday.