Ray and Ann Hager keep the history of Hilltop Tavern alive at Gunther’s Café in Mankato. “I’m leveraged deeply. Remodels and things over the years take a lot of money and you need a bank that understands the business.” Cottom has a few tips for would-be restaurant owners, starting with what won’t work. “If you haven’t done all the jobs involved in a restaurant and bar before you’re probably going to fail,” he said. “People open a restaurant and want to be an absentee owner or just hang out with their friends there, and then they wonder why it failed.” Mostly, he said, be prepared to work hard. “It’s going to take seven days a week and all your attention. You need to know how to maintain your equipment and fix things. There’s more regulations and inspections all the time,” Cottom said. “And you have to have a great staff. That’s key long term.” “Nobody said this business is easy. But I love it. Everything is good.” A piece of (hamburger) heaven Beginning in 1949, one of the iconic eateries in Mankato was a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant on Madison Avenue called Hilltop Tavern with the “Hamburger Heaven” logo. When the business shuttered its doors in 2003, generations of customers figured the simple, tasty hamburgers and cozy atmosphere was lost. Today, Ray and Ann Hager are keeping the location alive
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with Gunther’s Café, serving the same classic burgers, along with other revived local favorites. “We wanted to bring back a lot of the things you could no longer find in Mankato, like the Hilltop Tavern burgers. We make them the same way as they did.” Ray had worked at the old Junction Inn between Mankato and Lake Crystal, and brought their well-known onion rings. They also have hand-dipped shakes and brought back a staple of the former Kit Kat Inn, which had its heyday in the ’70s and was located next door to Gunther’s in what is now Patterson Diamonds. “They had the Butter Browns and we brought them back. Chunks of cooked potatoes, deep fried with butter on top,” Ann said. They’ve owned Gunther’s for four years but have long backgrounds in the business. “When we first met in the ’70s he was cooking in restaurants and I was a waitress,” she said. “We worked in some of the same restaurants together so we knew we could work together.” Ray was also working for Midwest Wireless but was laid off when they were sold. “We saw the ‘for sale’ sign at Hilltop Tavern and thought we could do this, so we made it happen.” “Our biggest awakening was when we very first opened,” she said of the onslaught of customers who overwhelmed