End of an era: Edina's Perkins closes for good

Kris Dowson started working at the Edina Perkins in 1979 while she was in high school and living just down the street on Vernon Avenue.

On Tuesday, the final day of business for the popular restaurant at Hwy. 100 and Eden Avenue, Dowson clocked her last shift. "It's the end of an era," she said.

An $85 million, seven-story apartment complex soon will replace Perkins, one of Edina's longest-running eateries and a chain restaurant with a mom-and-pop feel that made it a familiar place for hundreds of thousands of customers over the years.

"I'm going to be sad to see it go. It's not sweet, just bitter," said Bryan Ernst, 60, who had lunch there Tuesday with his 95-year-old dad, Charlie, visiting from Boston. "I would've been 8 years old when I first came here. I was happy to be here this last day."

Perkins, which opened in 1973, is the second landmark restaurant to close in Edina in the last two years. The Lakeshore Grill, formerly the Valley View Room, closed in 2020. The only Edina restaurant with a longer run than Perkins is the Convention Grill, which remains temporarily closed.

Perkins was scheduled to close at 4 p.m. Tuesday, which made Monday the last night with booths full of customers and an empty pie counter. By noon Tuesday, the only baked goods left were apple cinnamon muffins.

Mac and Jill McGuire drove in for lunch Tuesday from Shakopee after hearing Perkins was closing. He walked out with the last banana nut muffin, a souvenir of the place where they spent many dates before getting married in 2008.

"We always looked at that big [American] flag flying when you're coming down the highway. We're used to seeing that," Mac said. "It's kind of like a landmark," Jill added.

Cary Humphries, 92, came in for his customary breakfast, the one he would order five days a week and that servers knew by heart: dry rye bread, toasted twice, with plain oatmeal reheated in the microwave and a slice of banana on the side.

"Fussy old man," he joked.

Humphries started a Bible study group 40 years ago that met at Perkins. Over the years, he said, he watched groups of Muslims go to Perkins to break their Ramadan fast. His three sons grew up going there, he said, and when his 90-year-old wife, Margot — who has lived in a memory care facility for the last nine months — recently stopped in with an aide for lunch, the servers "fawned over her," he said.

The Edina Perkins also was the No. 1 stop after Friday night high school football games. Kids from Edina High would walk the few blocks to the restaurant, followed by families and finally the team, filling the entire restaurant.

Four women who met in a grief-support group for parents who have lost a child started coming to the Edina Perkins 16 years ago and returned one last time Tuesday to the place where they had helped each other heal.

"We noticed we were laughing more than we were crying," said Mary Middlecamp, after the group posed for a picture outside the restaurant.

A men's group from Christ Presbyterian Church, which met every week at Perkins, posed for a photo Tuesday with Dan Gruendeman, a server for 23 years. They came with their families every Christmas to give Gruendeman a gift, and did the same Tuesday. "We've had Dan from Day One," said Dave Appelhof, one of a half-dozen regulars in the group.

"It's a family restaurant in more ways than one," Gruendeman said. "Family style, and people end up being your family."

Jen Ghilardi of New Brighton has worked as a server at 25 Perkins locations, but said Edina was her favorite. "I love the people here, and the employees are like family," she said. "A lot of the guests, they come in every day, sometimes twice a day, sometimes three times a day."

Perkins will remove equipment and fixtures over the next few weeks before vacating the site. The building is expected to be demolished in March or April, with construction of the new development to follow. Employees have been grieving the impending loss the past few weeks, and many plan to return this spring to watch the demolition.

"We're still kind of in denial," Ghilardi said.

About a dozen of the restaurant's 40 employees will relocate to the Perkins in Bloomington off Interstate 494, and a few will transfer to Perkins in Maplewood and Roseville.

A tearful Dowson looked around the crowded restaurant Tuesday, as longtime customers stopped to give her hugs. "We've seen these kids — their parents were dating when they came here and the parents got married, had kids — and now the kids are growing up," she said.