Every so often, someone would approach Joe Rickenbach with an offer to buy his restaurant just south of Interstate 694 in Fridley, Minn., a suburb of Minneapolis. He was tempted once, but never did—until recently, that is, when an offer proved too good to pass up.
And so, on Sunday, Rickenbach closed his restaurant—Ricky’s Embers, the last of what at one point was one of the most popular family dining chains in the Upper Midwest. “Someone kind-of unexpectedly gave us an offer,” he said. “It was not the first offer. It was a good offer. We’re getting up in age. It was just the right timing.”
I expected to hear how bad the pandemic had been on Embers when I spoke with Rickenbach on Monday, and how that had led them to make the decision. Instead, Rickehbach went out on his own terms, the way an operator should go out, with a nice offer.
Still, the closure represents the end of era. For Minnesotans of a certain age, Embers was the place to go for breakfast or after the bars closed.
The chain was founded in 1956 by two childhood friends, Henry Kristal and Carl Birnberg. Its signature product was the Emberger, a quarter-pound burger with barbecue sauce, or the Emberger Royal, which featured cheese and bacon. (As a child growing up in the Twin Cities, I knew I had grown up when I was able to order a Royal.)
The concept grew in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area and then beyond with its all-day breakfast and 24-hour service, and a jingle on local ads called, “Remember the Embers.” But the chain was declining by the late 1990s, when it had 29 units in the Upper Midwest, mostly in Minnesota.
Birnberg retired and sold his interest to the Kristal family, which turned to franchising. The company offered independent operators the ability to adopt the Embers brand. Those franchisees had a lot of freedom to do what they wanted, so long as they kept the company’s most popular recipes. At one point, Embers had 60 restaurants with this model.
Rickenbach literally owes his life to Embers. His parents met at Embers, where they both worked. Rickenbach got his first job with one of the chain’s locations when he was 15 and has been working with the chain in the 43 years sine then.
“Everything in my life has revolved around Embers,” Rickenbach said.
Rickenbach opened his location in Fridley in 1998. He had been a manager with the company before that but was offered the opportunity to open his own location as an example to other potential franchisees. He named it Ricky’s Embers after his father, who was known as Ricky—short for Rickenbach.
Over the years, Embers locations closed as competition heated up. The family dining sector as a whole struggled in the early 2000s as customers flocked to casual dining chains like Applebee’s and Chili’s and later to fast-casual concepts.
Rickenbach himself watched many of these competitors open near his restaurant. There is an Applebee’s location on the opposite corner, for instance. One block away is a Chipotle Mexican Grill. Recently, a Jersey Mike’s subs opened right next door.
“It’s funny, I would get so nervous when they opened, when the Applebee’s moved in,” Rickenbach said. “Chipotle was the one that really scared me. ‘Oh gosh there goes our lunches.’
“I realized it’s just a different market. There’s not a lot of breakfast places around anymore. And we serve breakfast all day.”
In fact, as other Embers locations closed, Ricky’s Embers kept generating more business. The location has been the last of its kind for the past eight years. Rickenbach said he continued to get strong support from both the Kristal and the Birnberg families since then.
Most of Rickenbach’s menu was the same was it was in the 1990s, something customers appeared to appreciate.
“We had our regulars, Embers regulars. That’s always been huge,” he said. “We had the Embers fandom, and slowly got more and more people because of it. And then young people moved into the community. They just knew us as Ricky’s.”
Indeed, despite the nearby competition and demand for takeout that Embers didn’t do, “The last 10 years have just been magical.”
Rickenbach said he was tempted to sell one time. The company would get an offer about once every other year, he said, and one time he was tempted to take an offer—though it wasn’t a particularly good one—because he was just burned out. “It was really, really hard. I was cooking all the time. It was wearing.”
“I’m so glad we didn’t take the offer.”
Rickenbach admits that the past year was difficult. The company didn’t have any takeout to speak of before the pandemic. “We were not built for to-go,” he said. “And then we decided to just do it. We started making videos. We got it through. It was unbelievable how many showed up for to-go. They gave extra tips to the wait staff.”
Still, that offer was too tempting. Rickenbach and his wife were close to retiring. They had thoughts of opening something else but ultimately decided to retire.
Business has been booming since the company first announced the prospect of a closure three weeks ago. Longtime fans of the brand flocked to the location, as did people who had long-term connections with Embers, some of whom Rickenbach hadn’t seen in years.
What is Rickenbach going to do now that the restaurant is closed? “I don’t know,” he said. “Probably rest for about a week.”
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