The other half and I finally took a trip back up to Duluth , Minn. for the first time in at least a decade, there was one joint across the bay in Superior, Wisc. that I had heard so much about and wanted to try, it had be on the TV show Diners, Drive-ins and Dives.
We got there and the Anchor Bar & Grill was a true old school dive beer-bar. Hamburger was good, and they had fresh cut french fries, but I find fresh cut fries to be a bit over-hyped but they gave you plenty.
I bought their canning jar mug for 8 bucks but they filled it with beer for free.
Finding old ma and pa restaurants (we ate at one there a decade ago) in Duluth is now impossible as the Wuhan Virus put the last ones out of business; we were driving the next morning Northwest on U.S. 53 to a well known large Garden Greenhouse and figured that there would be some family restaurant on this busy highway to get breakfast at - as I said the days of finding a family style restaurant, incuding chain types, are long gone unless you already know where they are, long gone.
We stopped at a coffee shop on the edge of town, there was nothing after the coffee shop, and while they had coffee shop type breakfast offering, we wanted bacon and eggs meal, but she was nice enough to tell us that back about three miles there was the Social House, which was a standard restaurant.
IF, if you do not know it is there, you will not find it coming from the East , no sign advertising it but she said look for Gordy's Plaza as it is next door and that is the only reason we found it.
It was a very nice family place, and by the Grace of God, our waiter was old enough I could ask him about Old Duluth I remembered and we had a nice short coversation about Duluth and what was gone and why it was gone.
The A+ Garden Shop was five miles farther down the road and was one of the best I have seen in the entire state.
For supper we were going to have Greek Gyros at a place hyped on line as probably the best in Minnesota but as with so many restaurants nowadays, it was closed by that time of day, so down the road a bit , was Paradox Burger, it looked like a , hmmm, hippie-burnout joint, but I was curious.
The inside was normal and had a regular restaurant side, and there were a lot of middle aged people there, and a bar side, so we took the bar side as I like high tables with high chairs.
Burger was the smash type and excellent; again they had fresh cut french fries but it said in the menu they were cooked in beef lard. They were better than the ones from the Anchor Bar & Grill.
The next morning we had breakfast approx. 200 feet from he Motel 6 we stayed at, cheapest place in Duluth and still 100 bucks a night.
It was now called the Duluth Grill, but a decade earlier it was one of the last Embers in Minn. It was a standard family type restaurant and while I knew it was there, I like to try differen eateries when I go on vacation.
Good food, very good food AND, I found out it was also on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives TV show. PLUS, it and the Paradox Burger joint were owned by the same people - small world.
Duluth has not improved, inspite of its tourist traps setting which is what really puts money in the town coffers.
The former industrial sector Southwest of town , to me, looked better 20-30 years ago when it was dying because most of the industries had shut down (there was a major steel foundry there, and large lake boats used to go a full ten miles up river) .
A lot of the place I used to go to are gone and while buildings with new occupants have been refurbished, the area they are in has gone to hell, including the streets.
When they ran Interstae 35 through the middle of town that did more damage than good; even if you know Duluth as well as I did you had better have a computer to find your way around, or to find shops and eateries.
Some streets I used to drive on are non-functional, the street curbs and gutters are still there but there are chain-link fences going across the street so some short-cuts are gone.
First time I was there was in 1959 when the Seaway opened, and dad took us up there and it is still the place I would go to if I had to choose one place for vacation (in later years Dad and I would camp at Jay Cooke State Park, Southwest of town, and I miss tenting in the campground.)
For eateries though, the Duluth/Superior area is far better than the Twin Cities in Minn. greater variety with much better scenery.
As the area was mostly a heavy industrial area before the seventies, I am still amazed at the number of bars that are still around, not fancy foo-foo bars but old school small dive bars, especially in Superior, Wisc., Wuhan Virus did not put them out of business.
