Al's Breakfast

Al's Breakfast is crammed into a former alleyway between two much larger buildings and is located in the city's Dinkytown neighborhood near the University of Minnesota.

The restaurant's 14 stools have seated generations of local students, along with notable figures such as writer James Lileks and humorist Garrison Keillor, all of whom consider the tiny diner to be a significant icon of the state.

Bergstrom had gained experience at the griddle and in kitchen management in the 1940s while working at the popular Jack Robinson's Cafeteria during summers at the Minnesota State Fair.

[1] The Dinkytown building he purchased dates back to 1937 when a neighboring hardware store erected a shed in the alleyway to hold sheet metal and plumbing parts.

Al Bergstrom died at his residence in Forest Lake, Minnesota in 2003, at the age of 97, but the recipes and short-order cooking style that he developed continue to be used at his namesake restaurant.

In 2007, Laurie Lindeen, Minneapolis author, wife of ex-Replacements member Paul Westerberg, and former bandleader of Zuzu's Petals, chronicles several years of working at the "Hi-Lo Diner," described in her book Petal Pusher as a "famous fourteen-stool breakfast joint" near the U of M campus that has narrow walls "covered in grease-preserved foreign money."