Former employees punch in for Happy Chef reunion

Nov. 4—The past employees of Happy Chef were lined up and ready to punch in Saturday when 3 p.m. came around. This time, however, they were making and serving memories.

To celebrate the 60th anniversary of the homemade family restaurant chain that once featured nearly 80 locations around the upper Midwest, current owner Adrian Swales and his team hosted a former employee reunion to say thank you for creating the Happy Chef legacy.

Name tags included when and at which restaurant people worked. Despite tenures that stretched from the start in 1963 to today, and locations that included several in Iowa, the stories were similar.

And the smiles universal. Swales said that was the true reason for the reunion.

In the dining room, Donna Kubista of Owatonna was being interviewed by Kevin Johnson of KSMQ-TV, the PBS station out of Austin.

Johnson and Swales have been working on a story since last fall, and when the reunion came up it was a perfect time for Johnson to place an order for some stories.

Kubista worked at the Owatonna restaurant for 38 years, saying she got the job to help her kids get through high school. When they graduated, she stuck around because she enjoyed her co-workers and customers, she said.

She remembers 1971, when on Tuesdays people could get a cup of coffee for a nickel. Service clubs met at the restaurant along I-35, and the employees loved to get together after work for parties, many of which she hosted.

In the front dining room, Minnesota State University sociology graduate student Ryuto Hashimoto was conducting audio interviews under the tutelage of instructor David Engen. As with KSMQ, the timing was fortuitous because one of Engen's classes will be interviewing customers at the restaurant next week.

For Hashimoto, this was a teachable moment with a side of fries.

Among others, he interviewed Sharon Hewitt, who worked at both Happy Chef North on Highway 169 and Happy Chef East on Madison Avenue.

Johnne Syverson made the trip from Des Moines, Iowa. He worked for Happy Chef four years in Mankato, starting as a dishwasher, but worked his way up through the ranks as a cook, and then assistant manager.

"I turned 16 in February of 1964," he said, when the restaurant was less than a year old. "I rode my bike here from North Mankato every month trying to get a job. And they never needed anybody.

"But in November of '64 I came up and they said, 'Yup, we just had a guy quit washing dishes.' So, I said, 'Good, I'll take it.'"

He started at 80 cents an hour, which he thought was good since the last guy, a classmate, only got 75 cents. That was the first of many valuable lessons he learned at Happy Chef, he said. Many of the others came from owner Sal Frederick who, after they closed at 2 a.m., would sit with Syverson in the dining room and answer questions.

"I learned a lot from them about how to manage a business and how to run a business, and how to treat customers and working with the public," he said. "That served me well for the next 50 years in my own wealth management business."

When he left Mankato he first went to Story City, Iowa, where he helped open the first Happy Chef outside Minnesota, he said. He worked there as an assistant manager and manager 1968-72.

Tom Frederick Sr. said in a 2017 interview that the Mankato location was chosen because of proximity to Highway 169. As with the Owatonna store, for Story City the customers came on Interstate 35.

At the time, Story City had just 2,000 residents; when the interstate opened, it brought customers right to the front door, Syverson said.

Pat (Hodapp) Borgmeier's experiences predated Happy Chef. She started working at Frederick's Corner Café and Brett's Grill, though she filled in on Tuesdays for a meeting at the Highway 169 Happy Chef.

"(Sal's wife) Rosie Frederick used to, when I worked at the Corner Café, she would bring desserts down there and she would sell them down there," she said. "And she always made this red velvet cake that was just delicious. And that went really fast."

Her most memorable experience was when the Hell's Angels visited the downtown Corner Café. The police were across the street in case. When they left, the place was a mess.

"It was kind of nerve-wracking," she remembers, "but they were very good."

In a Skype conversation nearly two weeks before the reunion, the four surviving daughters of Sal Frederick reminisced about what it was like to grow up in the Mankato restaurant family.

Kathy Swartout, Becky Aspelund, Vicki McLaughlin and Mary Potz attended, but sister Molly Frederick Wolf was unable to. One sister, Peggy, has died.

In addition, Tom Frederick Sr.'s daughter, Gwen, who helped brother Tom Jr. open and operate Pub 500 for years, was also present. All of them moved about and greeted past employees, sharing photos and stories.

Also on hand was Barb (Frederick) Hoffman, whose husband, Jim, was a regional manager for Happy Chef for many years. Jim passed away about six years ago. Their son Tony was on hand.

On the call the daughters spoke of family "vacations" that were actually trips for father Sal to check in on various restaurants that didn't get regular visits. Each of them talked about starting at the restaurants at an early age, with tenures that varied depending on personal interests.

Although Happy Chef was a family-run chain of family restaurants, it wasn't presumed that the next generation would take over operations, they said.

Their father was usually gone in the morning when they woke up for school, they said, but there was always family time.

"He would come home sometimes and eat with us," Swartout said. "And then on Fridays we had family night. I think it was kind of a rule with mom that dad come home Friday nights and we would watch wrestling."

McLaughlin worked mostly on the North End, the name for the banquet facility at Happy Chef North. She started as a bus girl, then moved to waitress and hostess.

"The thing I remember is, with the smorgasbord, we always heard of people that would actually eat and then they would take more food and wrap it up in napkins and put it in their coat pockets to bring home," she said.

"It was interesting having your father as your boss and having your uncles as your boss," she continued. "It was just an interesting time, but I'm so glad that we all got to experience it. And dad's probably the hardest working man I've ever known in my life."