CLINTON - The outside thermometer was stuck well below zero the morning of Jan. 6, and yet a crowd of 60 people filled the Inadvertent Cafe in downtown Clinton by sunrise for the chance to discuss the issues of the day with State Sen. Torrey Westrom, R-Elbow Lake, and Rep. Jeff Baker, R-Browns Valley.
Everything from buffers to local government aid were the topics, but one underlying theme to it all was concern about economic opportunity in rural Minnesota.
Listening to it all from the cafe's kitchen was Brent Olson, who has redefined himself as a short order cook for the sake of rural economic development.
Cafe venture
Olson, 62, has been serving breakfasts at the cafe for four years in the hopes that this small eatery in a community of 450 people can serve as a larger model for reviving the rural economy.
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His goal is to turn this cafe over to the right person or couple to operate it and take advantage of its commercial-grade kitchen for value-added processing of local foods. It could produce jams, salsa and other products from locally grown crops and replace those now trucked in from elsewhere.
"I want people to live here. I want people to have good jobs. That's the whole thing,'' Olson said.
Located in a building that had been a cafe since 1927, the Inadvertent Cafe was refurbished four years ago. In this past year, local producers used the kitchen to produce 200 gallons of sauerkraut and 1,000 gallons of organic apple cider, with market success for both, according to Olson.
The cafe had been closed for a couple of years before a group with the Land Stewardship Project took on the project of re-opening it. Olson volunteered to lay tile for the kitchen floor and do carpentry work.
"So I puttered away most of a winter here doing this and that and kept kind of mulling over in my head, well, 'what could you do?''' he said. "To serve the larger community, what could you do?''
He applied and was named a Bush Fellow and awarded $75,000 for the cafe project. He was offered the opportunity to use some of the funds to travel to Spain for study. He had more pressing needs, such as a new refrigerator for the cafe. He points out that it cost $12,000 to install the ventilation hood for the kitchen, or exactly what it originally cost to build the building.
Olson has turned his experience at the cafe into a book, "The Inadvertent Cafe.'' (Kirk House Publishers of Minneapolis, 138 pages)
Value-added
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The cafe is self-sustaining because he takes no pay for his work. He pays a nominal lease to the city for the building. He receives help from workers with Main Street Industries.
Olson believes it could be a self-supporting business if someone is willing to keep it open for lunch and dinners, and to promote the value-added opportunities.
He believes the cafe cannot rely long-term on volunteer help. It needs an entrepreneur willing to put skin in the game. "People can't care intellectually. They have to yearn to have something succeed,'' he said.
Even though it is open only for breakfasts, there is no overstating the importance of the cafe to Clinton, according to Becky Stattelman, a Clinton resident.
"The value of having an open door on Main Street, Clinton, sounds like an ordinary thing but it is not in rural Minnesota,'' Stattelman said. "That is huge.''
Her son took advantage of its kitchen to process the apple cider he sells. "Many of us do many things,'' she said. "It's a way of life in rural Minnesota.''
Rural way of life
Olson leaves home at 5:35 a.m. every Tuesday through Saturday for the 10-minute drive to open the cafe and cook over its hot grill. The cafe is open from 6 to 10 a.m. each of those days. It will serve anywhere from 10 to 20 patrons on a frigid winter morning, and as many as 30 to 40 on a pleasant summer morning, he said. Omelettes, gluten-free pancakes, crepes, eggs, bacon and toast from fresh-baked bread are among the menu items. Every breakfast is served for $5.
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He said he opened with the idea "we're going to have good bread and good coffee. I'll figure out the rest from that.''
Olson grew up on his family's farm in Big Stone County, and farmed and raised pigs for 28 years. He is a husband, father, successful author and county commissioner. His weekly column "Independently Speaking" reaches 1 million readers.
He promised the Bush Foundation he would operate the cafe for at least four years. Now that he's reached that mark, he said he has made no plans to stop until he finds a successor.
He's had some interest from outside the area, but said it is hard to find the right person. "It would be hard for someone to come from a dramatically different place and succeed at this because to fit into a community and fit into a business simultaneously wouldn't be impossible, (but) it would be a challenge.''
The county has an aging population and, he said, most people prefer steady jobs with reliable hours that give them time for family and other interests.
"If you look at entrepreneurs who have succeeded, it is a kind of unique skill set,'' said Olson. "And there is just fewer people here in this part of the country so there are going to be fewer people with that skill set.''
Yet he is not alone in his optimism for the cafe. Clinton area resident and cafe patron Kathy Draeger, head of the University of Minnesota's Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships, believes its commercial kitchen will see increasing use by local food entrepreneurs.
"It seems like we really need to nurture and support small and mid-size farmers,'' said Draeger when asked what it would take for this to succeed. "There's a lot of regulatory complexity. Farmers need to feel confident they can address those regulations and use a facility like this to create healthy, local food items.''
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Olson said the hardest part for him is maintaining the rigid schedule. "I have not had to punch into a place since the summer of 1975,'' he said.
He also admits that mastering the skills of a short order cook have not come easy for him. A well-worn copy of Mark Bittman's book, "How to Cook Everything,'' remains as easy to reach as the grill's spatula.
It's all worth it, he said. Every day brings the rewards of hearing patrons laugh and leave the cafe in better spirits. "If you're on the road at 5:30 or 6, you see headlights going every direction,'' he said of his rural neighbors. "There are people who work so hard to cobble together a living and make a better life for their children and do something in their community. And to add a little joy to their life is really rewarding to me. That's the best part.''
