The historic Thayer Hotel building will be back in the restaurant business this month, and longtime area chef Bob Krebsbach can hardly wait.
For Krebsbach, working in the Thayer will be a homecoming. It is what brought him to Annandale, and more than three decades later he still resides here.
"I came here because of the Thayer Hotel, and worked here for three or four years," Krebsbach said recently while seated at a table just outside the kitchen that he ran for owner Wally Houle in the mid-1980s.
He recalls serving Muriel Humphrey during his first year, and also Roger Awsumb, who played the role of Casey Jones on a children’s television show that Krebsbach watched when he was growing up in Sauk Centre.
Even when cooking jobs took him all over the region, he has remained rooted in Annandale.
"It’s a very nice area, a small town like I’m from, and a resort town," he said.
Krebsbach is leasing the first floor of what will be known now as the Thayer Center from Andrew Hybben, who owns the property along with daughter Lisa Hybben and son-in-law Clint Huff.
That first floor will consist of a dining room that can seat up to 60 people and a fully-equipped commercial kitchen, along with a coffee shop.
"I look forward to being back and doing a finer-dining atmosphere, with the steaks and the walleyes and different seafoods," Krebsbach said.
Wearing a chef’s hat
Krebsbach, who is also known to be preparing meals his own kitchen on a night off, has been cooking longer than he can remember.
"My dad died when I was 5 so I did a lot of cooking," said. Krebsbach, the youngest of seven children. He recalls that he and his two sisters and another brother did most of the cooking because mother was working.
He attended cooking school at St. Cloud AVTI, and has cooked all over, from the St. Cloud Country Club and Persian Supper Club in St. Cloud to Up the Creek Grill & Bar in Silver Creek.
Krebsbach also worked at Target Field its first year, cooking in the Champions Club and for banquets and the press.
"That was a really fun job. I got to see a lot of really famous people, broadcasters and retired ballplayers," he said.
As a lifelong Minnesota Twins fan, he met many members of the two Twins teams that won the World Series. Krebsbach also recalls serving Tony Oliva, former Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig, and sportswriting institution Sid Hartman of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, who turns 98 years old this month.
That involved a lot of banquet-style cooking, and he has been doing that through February at Shady’s Hometown Tavern in Albany, a banquet center that seats up to 400 people.
Krebsbach is most known in the area for his stints as chef of the various incarnations of the Bay Club on Clearwater Lake, and for the years he and his wife Colleen owned RJ’s, the restaurant/bar that is now The Stadium on Chestnut Street in downtown Annandale.
Strangely enough, that establishment is practically right out the back door of the Thayer. It’s enough to put him right at home.
"I’ve been cooking in this area forever, and I just enjoy cooking for them. I think I have the feel for what they like to eat," he said. "The only thing I don’t know much about is coffee. I don’t drink coffee, and have never worked in a coffee shop."
That doesn’t matter, since Lisa Hybben will operate, "Lisa’s Coffee, Crepes and Treats."
Krebsbach had initially planned to open the restaurant portion Wednesday through Sunday. But he said last week that he now plans to open at 4 p.m. seven days a week. With the influx of people in the summertime, he envisions creating summer hours that might entail being open until 10 p.m.
"It looks pretty much as it was," he said about getting reacquainted with The Thayer, which is what he will call the restaurant. Renovations have been made to the kitchen area, and a bathroom will be constructed, but other than bringing in coffee equipment the building is mostly ready to go.
He heard about the opportunity from his wife, who was working with Lisa Hybben at Mill Creek Inn in Buffalo. Colleen will join him in the new endeavor, and the staff will consist of their three sons and one of their daughters.
He knows full well what goes into starting a restaurant.
"I’ve done it before many times. All you can do is try the best you can to please everybody – knowing that you can’t, but that is your goal."
How would he describe what customers will encounter at the Thayer?
"It will be like a nice supper club, but a little fine dining," he said, equating the menu to be something reminiscent of Bob’s Bay Club, McBride’s on the Bay and The Bay Club, the three variations of the restaurant on Turtle Bay along Clearwater Lake. "It will be something different, but not too crazy.
"I’ll have my Steak Oscar, my Chicken Oscar, my ribs, my walleye. I’ll have like a cajun catfish, or a pork medallion, sauteed in a garlic-mushroom cream sauce. That was always a good seller. So was my prime rib, and northwoods chicken."
Krebsbach said his soups have also been popular. As chef of the Bay Club, he won a first-place for his CBC (chicken, bacon and cheese) wild rice soup, made from his own recipe.
"I love making sauces and soups. I’m really looking forward to doing that again," he said.
Kerbsbach expected to appear before the City Council Monday night with an application for a full liquor license.
When weather allows in the warmer months, he plans outside seating on the east side of the building, and even has ideas about adding a barbecue element to things on summer weekends. These are some of the ideas being generated by someone who has been a chef since 1979.
"It’s nice to have an inside job in the wintertime, and I like what I’m doing," Krebsbach said about spending his entire career as a chef.
"It’s fun to serve people who are coming out for special occasions, or they’re just coming out to come out. I want it to be a nice dining experience, to enjoy the company they’re with, the food and the wine, and have a good time."
■ The Thayer dates back to 1895, and was the first building in the city to have gas lights and electricity. It is on the National Registry of Historic Places.
It has sat vacant since 2011, and Andrew Hybben, who with daughter Lisa Hybben and son-in-law Clint Huff, purchased it from a Twin Cities developer who never opened it for business in the two years he owned it.
Other plans call for turning the former bed-and-breakfast into a coffee shop with retail use on the first floor, office space on the second floor and office use on the third floor.
Be the first to comment