What makes us ‘so American’

Published 11:39 am Saturday, June 28, 2008

Accolades sometimes become so habitual and common, they really lose their meaning. But we, as Americans, love them. Plaques, tributes, commendations, “Top 10” lists — you name it. If you deserve credit or praise, boy, are you going to get an award, whether you like it or not.

But one local business earned a name-drop in a statewide publication that made Austin current and former residents glow with pride and nostalgia.

The Tender Maid, Austin’s 50s-style sandwich shop, with its diner stools and marker board menu, is currently gracing the pages of the July issue of Minnesota Monthly.

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Why? Its namesake burger nabbed the title as the 14th-best burger in Minnesota.

So what makes that so special? Another American trait has to be the art of competition — take it all or go home, right? Not always.

If there’s anything that makes small-town residents stand up and pay attention it’s a brush with fame, however small or seemingly insignificant.

It’s in my town. There’s our name. I’ve been there before.

The Tender Maid was not, however, named to the magazine’s list merely as a check-off for southern Minnesota. In fact, another burger in southeastern Minnesota recognized was from a hole-in-the-wall in Rochester — Newt’s.

Author and critic Dara Mosckowitz Grumdahl’s lede for her story was actually a description of the Tender Maid. She drove the 206 miles just to try one of their burgers without even annoucing her presence during her review.

As an Austin resident, you may never go to the Tender Maid. Sure, you might even dislike the Tender Maid. But it’s here, and it’s one of the places that makes small-town America great.

Like Grumdahl explains, the Austin burger joint is “just so American.”

“You should see it,”Grumdahl writes. “I mean, really, you should. It’s in downtown Austin, in a white clapboard building with red-and-white awnings — one of those places that is so thriftily built that there are no vestibules to keep the winter out, no bathrooms, no nothing. It’s a shack, really, But a shack is all they need.”

The writer goes on to describe the typical Tender Maid experience, how you sit down at a stool, a friendly, casually-dressed counter attendant takes your order, slaps the warm buns with ketchup and mustard, and piles on the steaming meat before wrapping the delicious mess in the trademark checkered paper before plopping it in front of you.

During Grumdahl’s quest to discover what is the ultimate Minnesota food, she bypassed the hotdishes, the walleye, the wild rice soup, before coming to the burger. If you surveyed every Minnesotan what their all-time favorite, last-meal-in-prison, if-I-was-on-a-desert-island was, do you think tator-tot hotdish is going to make the cut? Absolutely not. How about lutefisk, or egg bake? Coffee cake? Not even close. A juicy, condiment-slathered burger and a side of fries? Ya betcha.

The Tender Maid burger, if you really think about it, is essentially a sloppy joe without the sauce. Just plain ol’ meat and cheese in between two buns.

You can grab a shake at the Dairy Queen drive-through. Or any item off the $1 Menu at McDonald’s in a matter of seconds.

But you don’t. Because the Tender Maid — like any other watering hole, greasy spoon or coffee shop in rural America — is yours. It doesn’t belong to a chain of identical, run-of-the-mill restaurants with servers who wear blinking “flare” on their polo shirts. Nameless, faceless people don’t hand you a bag as you hurry through in your mini-van.

It’s service over speed. You can sit and chat about the weather, the election, the crops. Maybe you’ll run into your neighbor, or that guy you used to work with, or the woman from your church group.

It’s the same reason everytime you tell someone you’re from Austin, Minn., you toss in the part about Spam. Admit it, you do.

Despite the grumblings about the winters, and the complaining about having “nothing to do,” you have a little place inside you that takes pride in where you come from – even if it is a town famous for its canned meat.

Happy Independence Day!