I went to Macalester, and stayed for a year in the dorm under the bleachers of the stadium. For a year, I went to bed with the St. Clair Broiler’s neon lights coming through the window.
We went there today with Thad and Katie, who just moved up to Minnesota, and who both went to Macalester (but maybe not the Broiler as much as we did). They are renovating, but a sign on the table tells you that they’re part of the so-and-so family of restaurants, with new corporate step-brother Rudolph’s. Nothing’s changed, just you can now enjoy Rudolph’s delicious ribs at the Broiler, etc. etc. (It remains to be seen if this new ownership group has been behind Rudolph’s the whole time, or if they popped up, bought Rudolph’s, and are buying the Broiler just now.)
The Broiler was a diner-esque burger place with Greek emphasis, which meant you could get gyros and gyro salads alongside the featured burgers. (I was a math major with music and philosophy emphasis – that meant that I never accomplished anything meaningful in the music department, and I got a D- in the last class that would have secured my philosophy minor. Unrelated.) But that’s all changed now – food comes on fancy square plates, they’re renovating the whole thing. Everything is kind of upscale-ish, and looks much more serious.
The menu is totally different – it’s got a fantastic painting of the side of the building as I used to see it from my dorm window. Beyond that, it’s exactly like it was, with the addition of ribs. Kind of unfair, when you think about it.
And I’d love to report that they totally ruined the whole experience, but the food was precisely how I remember it. They’re trying unify the whole thing behind a new logo and everybody has a “St. Clair Broiler” shirt, but it was really just the same thing, only better.
