Two Harbors, MN

January 13, 2004

Survival of the Sweetest

Taken from the Duluth News Tribune, 3/12/200, Section B & 8B, Author: Chuck Frederick

TWO HARBORS -A new temple of temptation, a new shrine to sweetness, oh yes, a new Betty's Pies.

Charles Curtis

Carl Ehlenz and Betty Lessard discuss plans for the new Betty's Pies.

It's being pounded together and carved from a wooded hillside just up the North Shore from here and just inland from the landmark blue restaurant that has been stopping sweet-toothed tourists for four tasty decades.

The new Betty's -"Pie-llenium," the sign out front boasts -will feature more than twice the seating, plenty of parking, spectacular views of Lake Superior; a full menu and a return to the pie recipes that made Betty's world famous.

"Also, and you might want to put this in big bold letters," owners Carl Ehlenz beamed, "we'll have indoor bathrooms now."

Betty's outhouses, perpetually leaning but almost always clean, will be torn down sometime this summer along with the low-slung, flat-roofed, 41-seat restaurant that was first built in (... continued from the History page...) 1956 and then expanded three times.

The structures were purchased by the Minnesota Department of Transportation five years ago because they're in the way of plans to reroute Minnesota Highway 61 away from the eroding shoreline of Lake Superior. The work is scheduled for 2009.

A new Betty's Pies was needed. Construction began in October on the $500,000 building that will be situated on an angle just uphill from the existing eatery. The new place will seat 85 customers and feature a full service bakery. In addition, the dining room will be L-shaped, just like it was in the old building, and there will be a lunch counter similar to the one the restaurant had when it was originally built.

" We kind of wanted to copy what the old place was all about and preserve its history," Ehlenz said. "If we didn't, it would be like changing the name. We'd be fools to do that. So it's a return to the roots for Betty's Pies."

Contractors from Pieper Construction of Williams, Minn., near Lake of the Woods, expect the building to be ready by the end of next month. Ehlenz hopes to open May 1, and then stay open year-round. Until now, Betty's has been seasonal.

" We're looking forward to its opening with great anticipation," said Marian Cleveland, a retired Two Harbors woman and a long- time regular customer at Betty's. "The food and the people are both wonderful. And, of course, there are the pies. I like them all, but I can't have much. I'm diabetic. I do cheat once in a while, though. Whenever someone gets a piece, I have a little taste. Oh, you have to."

Ehlenz bought Betty's Pies two springs ago, almost on a whim. He and some friends in White Bear Lake, Minn., were passing around a newspaper story about the shop and how it might close for good if a new owner wasn't found.

" What do you think," Ehlenz asked his buddies.

" You're nuts," they said, but agreed he should look into it.

The buddies eventually bailed on the venture. But there was one friend who was won over by Ehlenz's enthusiasm. Martha Sieber agreed with the others that the venture was risky, but she believed in her friend and agreed to put up the financial backing.

In March 1998, the two partners bought the place for an even $100,000. The following spring, Betty's opened for business as usual. But Ehlenz's new staff knew little about taking orders and baking pies. And the new owner knew even less about running a restaurant.

" The only restaurant experience I had was at an ice cream parlor back in the '70s," he said. " I was just a kid, a high school kid. And that was it.

" The customers came in droves.

"We knew it might get busy, but we didn't know we'd be overrun," Ehlenz said. "We kept selling out of pies. We never seemed to know how many to make. We ran out all the time."

In over his head, Ehlenz called Betty.

As in Betty Lessard, the original Betty, the one who first opened the business in 1956 as a smoked. fish stand. She started baking her famous cookies and pies for something to do, she said, because the fish business was often slow. Soon, the baked goods outsold the fish, and it wasn't long before Lessard changed the name of the place and stopped selling fish altogether.

" When Carl called, I was more than happy to offer advice and criticism," said Lessard, who sold the restaurant in 1984 because she said she was burned out.

" I sure wanted to see the old place succeed; I always did," she said. "So we had a few cooking lessons at my house, a few baking lessons. It's been fun working together."

With Lessard's help, Ehlenz's second season went much smoother. He hired staff members last year who actually had restaurant experience and he started to get a better feel for what he was doing. The business actually started being fun. But something still wasn't right. Longtime customers continued to complain that the pies just weren't what they used to be. That wasn't good, Ehlenz knew.

He called Lessard again and the two of them got together to pore over his recipe cards. They were surprised by what they found.

" They weren't my recipes anymore," said Lessard, who is now writing a cookbook of her creations. "Over the years, they had changed. It happens."

For one thing, the restaurant was making its crusts with shortening. Lessard always used lard. She made one of her crusts for Ehlenz and he compared it to one from the restaurant.

"We went back to the old recipes right then and there," he said. Ehlenz and Lessard have become fast friends. Before construction on the new building began in October, they studied scrapbooks together, looking at old pictures of the way Betty's used to be.

" I reviewed with her what the interior of the new building should look like. I talked to her about everything," Ehlenz said. " I wanted her to sign off on a lot of things. It's important. The tradition of this place is important. I talk to her all the time now."