Grandma’s Restaurant Company was founded on the legend of Grandma Rosa and based on the principle of pleasing customers one at a time. Legend has it a young Italian immigrant named Rosa Brochi opened her first boarding house to lonely sailors in the Great Lakes port of Duluth, MN, near the turn of the 20th century. It was here that she started a lifelong commitment to customer satisfaction. Although its no longer boarding house, founder of Grandma’s Restaurant Company, Andy Bord and Mick Paulucci, have based their success on the principle of Customer Safisfaction. Continuing in Rosa’s tradition, her “Grandsons” ensure that each employee receives detailed training that focuses on warmth, knowledge, teamwork, sincerity, respect, and above all, customer service. Executive chefs in every restaurant make Grandma’s recipes an experience rather than just a meal. Since the “conversion” of the original restaurant on shores of Lake Superior in 1976, Grandma’s Restaurant Company has expanded its operations to include nine casual dining concepts and two retail operations throughout the state of Minnesota.

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Members: ToXiC, Nèur@l, Eca
Photos by: ToXiC w/ FujiFilm FinePix Z 8.0
Written by: Nèur@l
July 2009 Trip #1

One night in Summer, Eca, ToXiC, and I were hanging out having a couple of beers. After some good conversation, maybe a game of pool, we all started talking about maybe searching for an entrance to the West Bank steam tunnels. We cut off our tab, every good explorer needs to be a good degree of sober for a successful mission. We all hopped on our bikes and headed to our destination.

After we reached our general area we began a search, taking memory note of possible locations. We biked here and there all over the area. We soon came behind a building and ToXiC walked over to some grates that might be a plausible entrance. I noticed the cleaning crew inside about a good eight feet away from the window that showed a lovely view of Eca and ToXiC looking into the grate below. Luckily I spoke up before the guy looked out the window and we took off. We decided we had some good areas to check out for future, but currently we felt that’d take time. So we decided we’d come back to the area and  eliminate one possible entrance to the next till we found our lucky 1.

As we were heading back we noticed a building that had been overlooked by us for quite some time. We decided this would be an easy mission if we could just find an entrance. I was amazed we never thought of this building before considering that Eca used to frequent this area. Oh well, now’s our chance and it was the perfect time of night to do it. Considering the cops were busy dealing with the real criminals here, drunk drivers. Yeah, they’re a million times more dangerous than us urban splorers. If you drink and drive, you’re dumb. Anyways, we walked the perimeter of the building, making observations of where a possible entrance could be. We observed the area, checking to see if anyone was out partying late or not and might walk into our domain. All seemed beautifully clear, this was a good night for spelunking.

We immediately began checking all the locked doors at the ground level, and yes indeed they were locked. So naturally our next move was checking windows. Same thing, all locked. At this point I was on the opposite side of the building away from the group, god bless mobile communication devices. I began to climb up onto the part of the building that supported the air duct system. I walked around checking to see if there were any windows or doors I could get to, around this time ToXiC and Eca noticed I was more elevated than they were so I invited them up to enjoy the view. As soon as ToXiC got my status report he began sticking his head in the vent system. Nothing seemed like a good way in. At this point it occurred to me, this is definitely a climbing mission. We all had on our trusty splorer boots so ToXiC and I began to scale the building.

Soon I came across a window, after a good tug I was able to open it, it’s locked now so don’t even bother trying to find it. After I got into the building, I quickly shot Eca a ring on his cellular telephone device and told him to meet me at the front door and to bring ToXiC with. I quickly ran down the stairs and checked the front before opening it. You never know when you’re going to open the wrong one that just so happens to have an active alarm on it. It was all clear, I unlocked the door, peeked out and there were my mates ready to be let in.

We started at the front entrance floor, lots of windows so we monitored our light activity. The first floor was a typical bar setting that looked like they had booths lining the walls. The walls opposite of the front door had gorgeous looking stained glass that were accompanied with Victorian style wood workings. We noticed some of the stained glass panels were missing, either the owner of the building took those, or someone else has been here before us. I got the feeling the center floor was the dance floor considering there was a sound booth right next to it. We went into the back area of the first floor that held the kitchen area along with your walk in freezer and fridge. I took a peek in there, really boring except for the nasty mildew smell. There was an office in the kitchen area as well that had been cleaned out of most of the crap except a few scattered papers and a steel desk/filing cabinet. This is when we headed for the stairs.

The second floor of this place was definitely  a bit more interesting. I could see this is most likely where they had the pool tables and foosball. There was, of course, a bar, unfortunately no booze, but ToXiC happened to find an unopened bottle of MGD. Yum warm beer. It looked like scrappers were here considering a lot of the piping had been ripped out. There was, parallel to the bar, a separator where a sign was hung over it noting the name of where you were. ToXiC set up his trusty camera and we did a group photo underneath the sign. We walked the whole floor, again there was a back kitchen complete with walk in fridge and freezer. Scrappers had been here as well it seems. There were booths and tables lining the walls where I went to sit and check my gear. The front of the second floor also had a patio area, we decided against going out there cause of how close to street level it was. So we decided the third floor would be our next choice.

Upon entering the third floor I noticed how there was carpeting here whereas all the other floors were hardwood. There was only one small bar up here, perhaps this is where they held private events and parties. There was a dart board hanging on the wall closest to the stairwell. Seems like the ideal place for a dart board to me. We walked the area and I noticed a lovely cup of broccoli and cheese from Quizno’s chilling there. Nothing like a nice room temperature bowl of rotting soup. We walked into the back area where there is an office and a store room. Here we spent a good deal of time digging around through files and blueprints learning a bit more about the building we were in. Soon we all decided a cigarette would be a good idea so we headed to look for rooftop access. We walked through what seemed to be a room for the air conditioning and vent system and climbed the ladder to the roof. Peering out over this wonderful city we live in while getting our nicotine fix we all discussed what our next course of action was. ToXiC wanted to take some photos of the place as we slowly made our descent out into the open. So Eca and I split up to go explore the building more while ToXiC took his photographs.

I started at the third floor and figured I’d make my way back down to see if there was anything exciting I might have missed. I walked through the office rooms again then through some room that had pipes and empty space that was behind the room with the carpeting. Probably just a simple maintenance room or where they kept the water heaters, by the looks of it though I think the scrappers got to them first. Perhaps it was also a store room, hard to tell when these buildings have been picked clean. I continued onward, down a stairwell on the opposite side of the stairwell we originally went up. Soon I hit the first floor again and met up with ToXiC and Eca who were both ready to leave as the sun was coming up and our exit was going to be right in front of the street. I walked towards the front to check the traffic and quickly noticed “the yellow sign.” It’s haunting hilariousness quickly drew me towards it. Yes my avid readers, this is the famous “Vienna Beef” sign that yours truly had the pleasure of biking down the street with it strapped to his backpack. If you’re a police officer reading this, trust me, I put this sign to good use. I know our team doesn’t condone theft, but this sign is a piece of art and they left it sitting in darkness. I had to take it and hang it on my wall.

After some help from Eca and ToXiC to make sure the sign was properly secured to my back we began our evacuation. Single file out the door and casually walking down towards our bikes, ToXiC couldn’t resist at how hilarious I looked with a polish sausage on my back. He had me pose for a picture, which you can see me wearing in the picture above. We then began to bike our way home with Eca and ToXiC cracking jokes about how hilariously awesome I looked biking as the sign tried to force me to glide off into the air. We then parted ways. Thank you all for reading this as Grandma’s was an enjoyable mission. Until next time, stay tuned for more TCUR shenanigans.

Sources
1) http://www.grandmasrestaurants.com/history.htm