Odd fit but welcome neighbor in Prior Lake

At Edelweiss in downtown Prior Lake, Mark Bowles draws on all his training at L'hotel Sofitel and his many years in Europe to create classic French breakfast pastries. He began the prep for this morning's croissants three days ago.

That's not exactly the sort of place Lyaman McPherson has in mind a few hundred feet down the street, when -- if all goes well -- he ships in and begins restoring a classic New England diner.

"If you ask us for a croissant," he said, "we're going to point you down the block. We're going to be all about blue-plate specials: eggs, greasy hash browns and coffee. What small town doesn't have a greasy spoon? Well, Prior Lake, unfortunately."

What both men share is a desire to create something local and unique and to make downtown Prior Lake a draw.

"This is a dream I've had for a long time," said McPherson, last year's commander of the VFW post in the city. "Prior Lake doesn't have a place to get this sort of breakfast. The best thing is Perkins, but that's in Savage.

That doesn't make it. In part I moved to Prior Lake for the small-town feel. There used to be a neat place downtown where the regulars had their own coffee cups hanging on the wall. I'm old-fashioned, and this fits right into my world."

A single-story diner doesn't exactly fit the specifications Prior Lake has created for its downtown. The city has in mind a Stillwater-like ambience in which offices and condos sit above ground-level stores, as they do in Edelweiss' own building.

But Mayor Jack Haugen is intrigued nonetheless.

"I'm really excited about the prospect," he said. "If we can resolve the questions that need to be resolved, it could really be unique and exciting. Right now there is no other spot like this. You know, your basic bacon and eggs with a little bit of extra grease on it."

The unit that McPherson wants to move sits today in Providence, R.I. Poirier's Diner, dating to 1947, is mentioned a couple of times in the guidebook "Diners of New England," whose author describes that part of the country as the 19th-century birthplace of the diner itself.

"I'm trying to rescue some old dining car like Mickey's," in downtown St. Paul, McPherson said. "A group called the American Diner Museum runs a website that seeks to pair people interested in restoring them with people who have no desire to keep them. I was all set to buy one in Philadelphia, but a drunk driver drove right through the kitchen."

Providence is said to be the epicenter of the dining car idea, and 20 years ago, McPherson said, he actually had a meal at the very diner that he now wants to move here if he can succeed in closing on the sale after six months of talks.

It's one of three of its kind, he said, made by a company called Kullman, which still exists but now does other things.

"The fly in the ointment," he admitted, "is the verbiage for 'downtown redevelopment' -- three-story buildings with brick facades. Hopefully they can finagle the wording to allow it. It's not something anyone would have envisioned. But I'm willing to allow for public opinion: If you don't want it, so be it."

Another potential fly in the same ointment is the permanency of the project. Some city officials envision the diner as more of an interim use than something that will always be there.

"The city wants to keep its options open," McPherson said. "They hope development will come into downtown. My hope is that it pretty much becomes a permanent thing."

Prior Lake has been serious enough about its vision for downtown to turn down a project that would have brought in housing but would not have offered ground-floor retail. "We are 100 percent committed to 'mixed-use' downtown," Haugen said.

But he also suspects that the full-scale redevelopment of the area where the diner would sit -- near the VFW club -- is "eight to 10 to 12 years down the road for sure. So maybe this diner is an interim thing, who knows?"

As for Mark Bowles, practicing his craft at Edelweiss, he understands the basic dilemma that in a downtown half-hidden from the busy highway nearby, it doesn't hurt to lure people in.

The diner, he said, would be "great for the downtown area, and perfect for the area down there. People always like comfort food. It's like Cracker Barrel -- the same kind of thing. Old-fashioned comfort food sets something in motion inside all of us."

David Peterson • 952-882-9023