Breakfast with a Bloody

“There’s a picture on the wall over there of old Sister Bay,” James Larsen points out to me, “where you look down the hill and all you can see is this place and a blacksmith shop.” But although “this place,” currently called Husby’s Food and Spirits, is certainly an enduring establishment, here stability does not mean stagnancy.

Since Martin and Emma Husby first turned L. Lerner’s general store into Cherryland Restaurant in 1932, it has undergone a range of changes. In addition to the ever-present bar, Husby’s has boasted at various times a market, an ice cream shop, a dance floor, and even a roller-skating rink – and the last several years have borne no break with the tradition.

This season, the Garage at Husby’s has started serving breakfast. Now patrons may dine and drink outside every Saturday and Sunday morning, as well as every evening week-round.

According to James Larsen, general manager of Husby’s for the past six years, they used to serve breakfast inside “back in the day.” The restaurant’s owners and management team have wanted to bring breakfast back for a while, yet they decided to move it outside for several reasons. Larsen discloses the most compelling: “Basically the fact that – it’s hard in Northern Door to find any place that you can get breakfast with a cocktail or an adult beverage,” but it’s even harder “to find a place where you can do that outside.”

The Garage, which they opened five years ago and have been improving steadily since, made it possible to finally provide such an option. Though part of Husby’s, the Garage is “somewhat its own entity.” Larsen calls it “a big pressure release valve for our restaurant…created because Husby’s got so popular that we weren’t able to accommodate everyone who wanted to eat and drink inside.” Originally, he tells me, they were simply serving cans of beer out of ice-filled pickle buckets and setting up lawn furniture; now they offer a bit more, including a Cantina-style menu which features slider hamburgers along with Mexican meals.

In our conversation, Larsen sums up the ultimate purpose behind all the recent developments at Husby’s, including the new breakfast: “What we’ve done is we’ve taken the idea of providing a place for people to enjoy themselves outside, which is where people want to be. You know, we’re in Door County – it’s beautiful, we have beautiful weather. People come up from the city when it’s 90 and we’re still in the 70s. They want to be outside. We’ve basically expanded on that every year, and this Garage breakfast is just another expansion.”

Like the Garage’s dinner, breakfast consists in a few classics with an added Mexican twist. You can order the standard breakfast burrito, breakfast sandwich, or driver platter, but you can also go for the “amped up” Cadillac Burrito, El Camino Sandwich, Ranchero Platter, or the traditional migas – Breakfast Nachos.

Also, like the dinner dishes, breakfasts at the Garage are made with the same homemade salsas and pico de gallo. “We’re using the same fresh ingredients,” Larsen says, “the biggest difference, you know, just being adding eggs.” Finally, the Garage will provide all the same drinks in the morning as it does in the evening, though it also has a breakfast specialty – the Make-Your-Own Bloody Mary bar.

Despite all the changes, the restaurant is still what it always has been – as Larsen puts it, “the working man’s local hangout.” This, he believes, is the source of Husby’s success.

“The tourists and summertime people that come here, they want to be where the locals want to be, they want to fit in, they want to feel like they’re a part of everything that’s going on around here,” he explains. Husby’s is what they’re looking for, because “you know, we’re open year round – the locals keep our lights on in the winter.”

Larsen is also aware that many visitors in Door County are just wondering “where to go to get a great burger, where to go to get a cold beer and have a good time.” He concludes, “I feel like they ask the locals, and the locals send ’em right here.”

The Garage at Husby’s, located at 10641 N Bay Shore Dr. in Sister Bay, is open for breakfast on Saturday and Sunday from 8 am until noon.