Prairie Café to close by year’s end

For somebody who “lied my way into a job,” Nick Krekelberg has done alright.
He’s been cooking for about 50 years, starting out as a dishwasher – for about a week.
“Then one day, the cook didn’t show up, and they said, ‘you’re cooking today,’” Krekelberg said last week during the lull between breakfast and lunch at Nick’s Prairie Café, the restaurant in downtown Blooming Prairie that he’s owned for nearly 18 years.
He grew up in and around St. Cloud before serving as a combat medic in the Army. He spent a couple of years in law enforcement in South Dakota, but realized he could make more money cooking. That turned into positions of executive chef, then corporate chef for Ramada for 18 years.
When the opportunity to buy his own restaurant presented itself, Krekelberg took it.
“I’ve never had to answer to anyone, really,” he said. “I make all my own decisions.”
That includes his decision to close his little restaurant on Third Street Northeast.
“My knees are bad,” Krekelberg said, leaning against the counter. He’s been on his feet all of his life, including doing all of the cooking at his café.
“I want good food, and I want consistency,” he said. “That means I’m doing it.”
He’s at the restaurant between 2 and 3 a.m., Wednesday through Saturday. Though he no longer bakes his own bread, “those peppers and onions don’t prep themselves. And I get the soups going, get the specials decided…”
The sign on the door says the café opens at 6:30 a.m., but “I’m here at 3, so if someone comes in, that’s when I’m open,” Krekelberg said. He’s served coffee and breakfast long before 6:30 on several occasions, he said.
After cooking for banquets of more than 500 people, the small, hometown feel of Prairie Café was a good fit, Krekelberg said.
It’s clear his customers feel the same way. He greets most of them by first name, and often jokes that he’ll charge them if they don’t show up.
There are dozens of regulars, from the farmers who come in for coffee to the Friday lunch ladies to the Blooming Prairie High School football team.
In 2019, members of the team stopped for breakfast each Friday morning, and each Friday night, they won. It didn’t take but a few weeks before breakfast at Nick’s was as important as practice.
“They were – what is it? – superstitious,” Krekelberg said.
The Blossoms won their first state football title that year.
They were back again this season, having breakfast on game days.
“And if it’s busy, they’ll go help themselves to whatever they needed,” Krekelberg said. “They were good customers. Everyone in town supports us pretty good.”
The football team went 10-2 this season, finishing first in the Gopher Conference.
He has some favorite customers on Saturday mornings, too; so special that the gruff 65-year-old who doesn’t want his photo taken got on the internet to find unicorn sprinkles.
He tops his Mickey Mouse-shaped pancakes with the sprinkles, much to the delight of his littlest diners.
“Working with Nick, I can’t stay crabby for more than 20 minutes,” said Chyanne Markham, who’s been serving meals at the café for about nine months.
“If he sees I’m not in a good mood, he’ll crack a joke or do something to make me smile,” she said. “Then he’ll say, ‘don’t tell people that – I have a reputation to uphold.’ I love this job.”
Donna Wigham has worked with – and for – Krekelberg for years, back to the days at Ramada.
“He’s one of the best chefs I’ve ever known,” she said.
Markham dropped off individual bills at a table in the back room, looking at each slip as she did.
“Pearl, here’s yours; Imogene, and Sharon,” she said, sliding them in front of each woman.
Personalized service?
“Absolutely, that’s what we like about it,” said Betty Ingvalson. “It’s written in stone: Every Friday, we’re here.”
George Mount can top that.
He comes to the café for lunch every day that it’s open, driving from his home 12 miles north of Blooming Prairie. He’s done it since his wife died about 11 years ago.
“I came in here one day and got a bacon-cheeseburger, and that sold me,” Mount said.
Kristine Allas and her aunt, Janice VanderVoort, are new customers.
“He’s got good food, the price is right, the service has always been exceptional,” VanderVoort said.
“We just started coming here in June,” said Allas, of Lansing. She and VanderVoort stop on Fridays, usually, and are disappointed their visits are numbered.
But those knees.
Krekelberg is hoping to get them replaced, maybe as soon as February.
In the meantime, he’ll keep serving breakfast and lunch through December, when both the food and the lease run out.
The owner of TT Motorsports owns the entire building; he plans to expand into the spot currently occupied by the café.
Krekelberg is donating some of the pieces of Blooming Prairie history that hang on the wall; some people have offered to buy other pieces; he’ll probably scrap some of the equipment.
The spot that has been a restaurant for … well, nobody seems to know exactly when it opened, but “almost everybody in town has owned this place,” Krekelberg said. He’s probably owned it the longest.
So what now?
“I’ve got a few irons in the fire,” he said. “I can’t sit around for long.”