The “Last College Try” For Popular Southern Minnesota Breakfast Spot

What started off as a labor of love for the owners of a cozy Southern Minnesota breakfast restaurant has become 'emotionally draining', after dealing with COVID-19 and having to close due to restrictions, and now losing a majority of their parking for customers has the Millers, Holly and Clint of Albert Lea, who own the B & B Cafe giving it their 'last college try' in order to make their business, more importantly, their labor of love, work.

The parking lot situation came to light back in December with the announcement of a new business coming to the area.

The popular breakfast cafe, which is only open mornings, had an already small parking lot due to other businesses being located all within the same footprint of where the cafe is located near the channel and between Main Street and Bridge Avenue near downtown Albert Lea.

Yesterday Holly Miller, went live on Facebook to give an update on where patrons can park when they come for breakfast but also stated "This is our...final, last college try. We are going to try our hardest to get through this. Clint and I are emotionally exhausted after the last two years. This has been so hard. We followed COVID restrictions. We did the best we could through that. We had our flood that happened....umm...and every time everyone has been so supportive. We are emotionally exhausted."

From the video we learned that parking along an adjacent street will be brought up with the county in the Spring, but patrons coming to the cafe will have to park in different places around the restaurant, or risk being towed away.

The cafe has been a popular stop for many in the Albert Lea area to start their day right. Whether that meant nursing a hangover from the night before while enjoying pancakes the size of dinner plates, or turning the experience into a tradition, coming in each Saturday and gathering as a community sharing stories and experiences of years gone by.

If the B & B Cafe goes away, a little piece of history will be lost, and it would be on the surface over parking, but deeper it would be the emotional stress of the last two years that put an end to a Southern Minnesota tradition.

Get out and support local businesses, they still need our help to keep their lights on and serve us the pancakes we deeply deserve.