When I took a leave from college during my junior year, my first job supporting myself in Northfield was as a waitress at Country Kitchen. Yea, I know, glamorous. My next job was also waitressing at Ole Piper Inn – a little better money and closer to my apartment. When Ole Piper went other (rather abruptly), my friend Deana found a job at the Ole Store and managed to squeeze out a job for me as well. That job was a combination of waitress/baker/cook.
I’ve heard people say that everyone should be required to spend a year being a waiter or waitress as they’re starting out-kind of like compulsory armed services requirements. I’ve always thought that was a great idea.
Convention Grill in Edina closed down during pandemic and then for a variety of reasons, never got around to re-opening until this past week. The family who owns it has been telling us for years that they were going to be back in business eventually so I’ve been keeping tabs on their progress for awhile now: when I saw the ads for staff last month, I was ecstatic and YA thought we should go right away.
It was during this trip that I was reminded about everyone needing food service background – especially YA! We had a wait, which was expected. A very pushy gentleman managed to get the young guy monitoring the waiting list to seat him before us. This outraged YA. I was more mad at the pushy guy but we got seated immediately after that and it turned out to be a better table. YA was not mollified.
Then it turned out that they didn’t have a veggie burger. My guess is that they will eventually bring that back but the thin paper menus made me think that they might be opening on a restricted listing. YA was in a huff about this, announcing right as my Diet Coke showed up that she didn’t want anything else. I said “OK, then let’s go.” This took her by surprise and she backed down quickly. She said we could stay but she wouldn’t have anything. I replied that this wasn’t my idea of a good time and we should go. Grumpily she said she’d have the triple-decker grilled cheese. She didn’t want an order of fries, said she’d have “10” of mine. The one thing you can still count on at Convention Grill is the size of the orders of fries. One side order is good for two. YA ate her entire sandwich and about half the fries.
Luckily getting food into her helped a lot but she continued to point out things that could be better, including the wait for the food, the fact that the waitress only checked in with us once, the wait for the check. When I suggested that the restaurant had only been open for three days and it was chock-a-block full of customers and unsurprisingly they had a few kinks to work out, she was unconvinced. I also told her it was likely that 100% of the staff were new, she retorted that most of them probably had experience elsewhere, I told no… probably 80% of the staff probably didn’t. If they had prior experience, they most likely couldn’t afford to work at Convention Grill. At this point I told her she needed to spend a year working in a restaurant and that she was “harshing my buzz” (quote from Big Bang Theory. Rest of the time was uneventful.
Anyway, my review is that if you enjoyed Convention Grill before pandemic, you’ll most likely enjoy it now. If you’ve never been but like retro dining experiences with a variety of burgers, malts and fabulous fries, you’ll most likely enjoy it. If you’re YA – maybe not.
Tell me about a favorite place that has re-opened since pandemic!