Eden Prairie's Lions Tap: Single-minded about burgers - for 30 years

The menu at the Lions Tap is free of excess. No chicken, no sandwiches. A salad? Never. The Eden Prairie restaurant serves what it has for 30 years: burgers.

In fact, things have changed so little that adding a new burger to the lineup in January -- the mushroom Swiss -- took a decade of debate, years of thought and months of prep.

"Rather than doing what everyone else does and use canned mushrooms and not-so-real Swiss, we use real Swiss and saute our mushrooms every day," said owner Bonnie Notermann.

Doing so meant finding the best ingredients, making room for them in the kitchen and training staff to answer the question: Why'd you change the menu?

As dedicated as the staff is to the tradition of the place, customers might be more so. The Lions Tap is an institution. This November, its owners, Bert and Bonnie Notermann, will celebrate 30 years.

Ask regulars how long they have been coming here and they will sigh. "Oh, gosh, at least 15, 20 years," said Barb Moodie, who lives in Edina.

"No. Longer than that," said her husband, Tim. "At least 30 years for me. I remember my father bringing me here. I must have been in eighth grade."

Ask regulars how the place has changed, and they will shake their heads. "Hasn't changed a bit," said Gary Thomsen, who, with his wife Kay, has eaten there as long as they have lived in Eden Prairie -- 20 years.

'It's about ingredients'

Of course, the business has evolved with the times. They'll take credit cards, don't allow smoking and invested in an updated logo and branding campaign. But Bert and Bonnie Notermann have chosen those evolutions carefully. The recipe's still the same.

"People always say, 'What's there to cooking a burger? " Bert Notermann said. "Well, there's a lot to cooking a burger. It's about ingredients and timing and how you put it together."

The meat -- a mix of fresh beef and aged steak scraps -- is ground and delivered daily. It's carefully pressed and lightly seasoned. Then the staff hand-scoops, hand-patties and cooks each burger to order.

If you want your burger rare or well-done, they'll do that. But the standard is medium.

"There's a little red in it, so someone will say 'Oh, it's a little rare,' and I'll say, 'Try it once,'" Bert Notermann said. "They like it, of course. People want steaks rare, but when it comes to hamburgers, they want them well-done. Well, you probably should be eating your hamburgers the way you're eating your steaks."

The process is careful but quick. "We can crank out 800 to 900 burgers an hour -- no problem," said Patrick Smith, longtime kitchen manager.

The restaurant goes through 300 to 400 pounds of ground beef each weekday and 800 pounds a day on weekends, Bonnie Notermann said.

The Notermanns bought the restaurant in 1977 on a whim. Bert was in the real estate business and spoke with the man who had recently bought the place. "I came home and told Bonnie, 'Guess what? We're going to buy the Lyon's Tap.'" That's how it was spelled back then.

At that time, Eden Prairie had just one other restaurant, a cafe. But a McDonald's came soon after.

"People said, 'Oh boy, aren't you worried?'" Bert recalled. "And I thought, with a little foresight, 'You know? Not really. McDonald's is coming in and they're spending millions to get people to eat hamburgers. It'll give us a million-dollar budget for advertising.' "

The Notermanns were aggressive with their own advertising, publishing coupons before it was popular to do so.

"It was supposedly bad for business, and it was supposedly going to cheapen the product," Bert said. "Well, guess what? We built this business on couponing."

When the Notermanns bought it, the place was making $150,000 a year. Now, it grosses more than $2.25 million.

Which begs the question: With a powerful brand and an efficient model, why not franchise?

Employees, many of whom have been around as long as the most regular regulars, have opinions on that. And just as they did on the topic of introducing the mushroom-Swiss, burger, they'll give them.

"I don't think they should do it," Smith said. (He, however, supported the mushroom-Swiss burger.) "I've done the fine-dining, I've done the franchises, and it's hard to work in places like that.

A template for business

Manager Martin O'Toole, who began serving while in college at St. John's, wants to own his own restaurant someday and considers the Lions Tap "the ideal business model."

When he worked for a franchise, he "didn't know who I was working for." But within months as a manger at the Tap, he was able to make decisions based on what he thought Bert and Bonnie would do.

The Notermanns have thought about franchising, or perhaps opening another location. They're keeping a list of offers. But it's a huge decision, they said.

And after all, these are the folks who took 29 years before deciding to use mushrooms or Swiss.

Jenna Ross • 612-673-7168

Jenna Ross • jross@startribune.com