Liberty Restaurant and Bar Rings in a New Era for St. Michael American Legion

This won't be your father's American Legion, St. Michael.

Get ready for Liberty Restaurant and Bar, which will be operating in cooperation with the Legion, torn down last month to make way for the Walgreens parking lot. 

It's a joint venture. A symbiotic relationship between restaurant and bar along with the service club of old. It will be home to top-shelf prime rib and your favorite light beer. It's nice, but not too nice. 

"You have to have that balance. You want people to know that this is more than just the old club. This is a place to have a nice meal, or grab a beer and some appetizers and watch the game," said Norm Freske, general manager of the new restaurant. 

Freske is the son of Legion Commander Norman Freske. The two are working closely to not only keep the traditions of the club alive, but to move out into a business model that will keep the club a mainstay in downtown St. Michael for years to come. 

That's music to the City of St. Michael's ears, who assisted with the club's purchase of the old TJ's Restaurant back in February. 

"The idea is to keep a successful enterprise downtown. You don't want to lose that," said council member Cindy Weston when the city was given the green light to purchase a $100,000 piece of property from TJ's, closing the deal. 

Work is going on daily inside the building, which has served the community as a fine-dining destination and, back in its day, an office building. 

"There are surprises all over the place," Norm said, showing a picture of the roof, which is inside of the current roof of the building. "Shingles under trusses and shingles. That was a surprise." 

Volunteers have come out of the ... well, woodwork. Greg Vetsch is serving as the contractor. Schoen Electric has been onsite helping wire the place for two weeks. Other laborers, some club members, some not, have also donated time and materials. 

"It's been fun to see," Norm said. 

Freske has been interviewing staff and will continue to look for servers, bartenders and other staff until the doors open to the new bar portion of the building in April. The restaurant (the building has four different seating areas) should open in phases throughout the spring. 

Craig Heckman has been hired as lead chef. He's familiar with the building, too. He served as a lead chef for Russell's and was also part of the unsuccessful Flaming June venture. He trained at Pulaski's in Maple Grove, and hopes to bring that sort of feel to Liberty.

"I'm very big on homemade - sauces and recipes. I want a lot of things to be made from scratch," Heckman said. 

Norm has restaurant experience, too, though it dates back to his days as a student here at St. Michael-Albertville High School. He's worked in computers for most of his life, but was happy to get back into the food business. 

"It's going to be all about service," he said. "It's cool to be back and doing different things. The people that have pitched in and the people that we've hired so far, they're really excited and ready to pull this off. This is something St. Michael needs and the Legion has needed for a while."