Axels in Mendota will shut down this month, closing a decades-long chapter of Twin Cities restaurant history.
“It has been our pleasure to serve our customers and this community for more than 29 years,” a closing announcement posted on Axel’s door reads.
“You have been wonderful and want to thank you from the bottom of our hearts for making us your destination to share so many memories with,” the announcement continues. “Before Axels passes into history, we would like to invite you to join us one last time.”
The restaurant on Highway 13 has been a fixture of the historic town since the early 1940s, when diners visited the establishment then known as Parker House.
There, Axels founders Linda Young and Charlie Burrows envisioned bringing a supper club-style steakhouse to the community.
Young’s parents, Janette and Axel Lofgren, both worked at Parker House, which Young and Burrows later bought and transformed into Axels River Grille, considered the flagship of what became the Axels Family of Restaurants.