Pancakes at cafe in Bricelyn voted best in Minnesota

Published 10:23 am Monday, September 16, 2013

BRICELYN — A restaurant in this Faribault County community has been voted as having the best pancakes in Minnesota.

A WCCO online poll selected Bud’s Cafe, saying it had more votes than Bricelyn has people.

“It’s an old recipe,” Bud’s Cafe owner Tom Hughes told a WCCO TV reporter for a segment that aired Thursday. “It was my mother’s recipe.”

Bud and a brother opened the place in the 1930s. Bud died in 1965, and his wife took over until 1985, when Tom took over.

He said he doesn’t know what makes his pancakes so special.

“I’m glad they like them and people keep coming back,” he told the Tribune.

The phone has been ringing off the hook, said Sharyl Johnson, who has worked at Bud’s Cafe for 14 years. She said people want to know the breakfast hours.

In fact, a group of Minneapolis and another from Savage were there Friday morning.

Bud’s Cafe was among a dozen places selected for the poll. Johnson said a woman noticed on Facebook that WCCO was seeking nominations for an online poll, so she suggested Bud’s Cafe in Bricelyn. Once it was up there, many people who knew of the place over the decades went online to vote.

“Many people, when they were children, had breakfast here, and now they come back and have this great food,” Johnson said.