- [Announcer] Funding for this program is provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

(spirited music) - [Announcer] Coming up next, "Off 90."

Join us as we check out Moms Bread Company in Albert Lea.

(lively music) We travel to Winona to learn about Steamboat Days.

(lively music) And we visit the breakfast barn in Millville.

(lively music) It's all just ahead, "Off 90."

(lively music) (spirited music) (spirited music continues) (lively music) (mellow music) - My name is Katie Erickson.

I'm the owner here at Moms Bread Company in Albert Lea, Minnesota.

(mellow music) We opened Moms Bread Company on February 19th here in 2025.

Our hours are eight o'clock in the morning till 02:00 PM.

We are open Wednesday through Saturday.

It was kind of a long lost dream to open a bakery.

My husband is one of the owners at a bar and restaurant here in Albert Lea.

So we've got a little food industry behind our scenes.

I'm also a nurse in the emergency room here in Albert Lea too.

So we had a opportunity for this position in this store that came available and it's just two doors down from the 112, so it was a perfect opportunity to open a bread company.

(mellow music) The breads that we feature here are sourdough-based.

We have always an original.

Our cranberry walnut is a very good option too.

We do a jalapeno cheddar as well as a rosemary Parmesan.

We offer breakfast, lunch, a variety of espresso coffees, homemade lemonades.

We kinda try to specialize in the homemade aspect just like you would at your mom's house.

We try to do some locally sourced things around here, kinda specialize with the seasons that we go with, but try to just mainly keep it as homemade as we can.

Our cookies and breads, they're all homemade.

Different recipes throughout the menu are just more of a homemade aspect rather than cracking a container.

(mellow music) I wake up at three o'clock in the morning.

I get here by at least four o'clock to turn the ovens on.

I have my favorite bread oven.

It takes a good hour to at least heat up the coils on there.

So while I'm doing that, getting the other ovens going and prepping everything else for the day.

So it's a nice and early morning for every day.

(joyful music) My favorite recipe probably making right now in the kitchen is between the chicken salad, which is our homemade secret recipe.

It's been a fan favorite with the customers and it gets served on the cranberry walnut bread.

Our homemade cookies are also a pretty good fan favorite.

One of them being a toffee-chocolate chip cookie, which is the homemade toffee in there and the brown butter.

It's just delicious.

We have approximately 13 to 15 employees right now.

My husband is my right-hand man as far as a lot of that stuff goes too, so I'm very thankful to be partnered up with him.

I do all the baking here.

We do have a team in the back.

We are a all-hands-on motto, so we all chip in wherever it's needed, whether it's chopping celery, doing the dishes, pouring the coffee, it's all hands on.

We do have two kind of intermittent with-each-other cooks and then my husband, Brent, and I will fill in as well.

(joyful music) We have established quite a few regulars.

Our staff is super wonderful at getting to know everybody.

We're on a first-name basis with a lot of people.

It's just been, it's fun to get to know them and they know what they like and they're here for their rolls many mornings a week.

(chuckles) We do catering.

We do rent out our facility for private events.

We love takeout orders.

We kinda specialize in a box lunch, which has really worked out good for private events as well.

But anytime that we're not open during our business hours, we're more than happy to rent out the facility.

We can partner with the 112 On Broadway for liquor licensing, so we can offer that service as well.

We do have a special little corner in the bakery that we have set up for bar services that we can offer through the 112 on Broadway.

One weekend a month, we offer Friday and Saturday fine dining evenings, reservation only, and we select kind of some specialty items that we offer for our guests and have the bar services through there.

When the bar is not active throughout the week, we also have a little ice cream parlor back there as well.

We serve soft, or, excuse me, hard-scoop ice creams in the back there as well as malts.

(playful music) I have loved to cook with my mom pretty much my whole life, so she's just kinda taught me as we've gone through the kitchen, just kinda make it up as you go, some little cheating recipes that I (lips smacking) can't say so much about, but just try to make it what I would like to eat.

My mom is very much our right-hand man.

It takes a village to do anything in life anymore and she's helps from the very beginning.

Right now she's watching my kids, so, Brent and I can be on the front-line back here, but she's always my resource for everything else, so.

Our children are four, five, and seven years old, so they are as much involved as they can be.

They like to run around and get plates off the tables and practice as they're growing up.

(mellow music) Fresh bread is always a better option than store-bought bread.

I will say I've given the option to my kids, which, you know, I'm making 'em a sandwich.

Do you want regular bread or do you want Mom's bread?

But they always choose Mom's bread.

That's how we came up with the name Moms Bread Company.

Minimal ingredients and it keeps it fresh and you're always knowing what you're consuming.

(mellow music) Transitioning from a home kitchen, baking for a, you know, relatively smaller scale of group of people to something to this size where we have a pretty decent sized kitchen.

It's already not big enough.

There's never enough counter space.

But with sourdough it's been a little bit of a learning curve to find the humidity, the temperature, everything is different when you're doing it on bigger scales like that.

(playful music) We've had a very warm welcome from our community here in Albert Lea.

We're very appreciative for being a part of the heart of Albert Lea in downtown.

It's just been thriving.

It seems like this was kind of a need for the town and we're just really honored and blessed to be able to fulfill that and provide a place that people can gather and just kinda relax and have some homemade food and just kinda really feel comfortable in their environment and enjoy the Albert Lea downtown area.

(playful music) As far as plans for the future, it's really been more than what we would've anticipated as even just starting off.

So my husband, Brent, will always, he dreams big for the both of us, but it's been fun to kinda watch it grow as it's even just started.

So we'll see what the future holds.

It's all in God's hands.

(playful music) (playful music continues) (playful music continues) (playful music continues) (spirited music) - I'm Stephen Sheehan, president of Winona Steamboat Days 2025.

This is our 78th Annual Steamboat Days.

You know, we are the Winona Steamboat Days Committee.

We took over the festival about 12 years ago.

Before that, it was ran by the JCs for many, many years, you know, throughout the '70s, '80s and '90s.

But we are proud to continue the tradition.

We're gonna be here for the next 78 years going forward.

I don't know the full story of how we're known as Steamboat Days began, but, you know, it's the, you know, the tradition of Winona being a river city.

You know, all the steamboats and barges going through, all the shipping and trade going up and down the river.

We have two lakes that are on the south end of Winona, like nestled between the city itself and the beautiful bluffs that surround us.

And right between the two lakes is that lovely little model Steamboat.

And then, you know, going back east along the highway on the lake is where our Lake Park is and in that beautiful Lake Park is the Bandshell.

And on that Bandshell is where the Marine Reserve Band is playing tonight at seven o'clock.

- So Marine Forces Reserve Band has been supporting Steamboat Days in Winona for approximately five years.

And we are honored to return here every single year.

The city is a great host to us and always make sure that we're well taken care of.

We came up to Winona because our marine bands, it's very important for us to reach a larger audience.

So we perform over on the East Coast, the West Coast, and Midwest especially.

There's a lot of great community support and patriotism in this community.

But we also travel abroad, we, Marine Forces Reserve Band specifically focuses on South America.

So we get to perform for embassies down in like Chile, Panama, and even Argentina.

So it's a great opportunity for the Marine Corps to reach out here locally within the country and overseas with our foreign allies.

(band hands clapping) (upbeat music) ♪ Oh hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey ♪ ♪ Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey ♪ (upbeat band music) (upbeat band music continues) (upbeat band music continues) (upbeat band music continues) ♪ Put your right foot forward ♪ ♪ Put your left to the rear ♪ ♪ Put your right foot forward ♪ ♪ We got uptown groove right here ♪ ♪ Put your right foot forward ♪ ♪ Put your left to the rear ♪ ♪ Put your right foot forward ♪ ♪ We got (indistinct) in here ♪ ♪ Everybody, come on ♪ ♪ Hey ♪ ♪ Welcome to New Orleans ♪ ♪ Everybody, come on, hey ♪ ♪ Welcome to New Orleans ♪ ♪ Everybody, come on ♪ ♪ Hey, welcome to New Orleans ♪ ♪ Everybody, come on ♪ ♪ Hey, welcome to New Orleans ♪ ♪ Yeah ♪ (upbeat music) - So the band is stationed at Marine Corps Support Facility over in New Orleans.

It's in the Algiers District.

Since we come from New Orleans, brass band music, jazz is very important and as you saw tonight, the crowd really enjoyed it.

So that kinda takes you down to all the iconic scenes down in New Orleans and experience that jazz culture.

(upbeat music) So the band plays mainly in the New Orleans area, but we have a great facility.

We have a sound studio, we can record there.

We have our own music library, so we have all the necessary means to train and rehearse for all of our performances throughout the country.

♪ Put your right foot forward ♪ ♪ We got uptown funk (indistinct) come on ♪ ♪ Hey, welcome to New Orleans ♪ ♪ Everybody, get up ♪ ♪ Hey, welcome to New Orleans ♪ ♪ Everybody, get up ♪ ♪ Hey, welcome to New Orleans ♪ ♪ Everybody, get up ♪ ♪ Hey, welcome to New Orleans ♪ (upbeat music) ♪ Woo, come on ♪ (crowd cheering) (upbeat music continues) - Tonight we performed at the Veterans Park Bandshell in Winona.

Tomorrow we'll be playing over at the Fair, which is the beverage tent.

So they got a lot of popular music that we played there.

Our New Orleans style brass band will be playing there as well.

We'll return back Winona to do the Steamboat Days parade, which should be closing out the whole event on Sundays.

(upbeat music) (crowd applauding) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) - The thing that has brought me to become a part of Winona Steamboat Days is no single event, I mean, every year there's something that wows me.

You know, the first year we had Dangerous Feats.

I was amazed by Nick and his straitjacket wrapped in chains escape act.

I was wowed by that.

Anytime GoldStar brings in one of their newest rides, it's, you know, a new fun, exhilarating experience.

And every year our grand parade gets bigger and better every year.

So we always try to have something new, something fresh, and something entertaining in our parade.

So it's hard to nail down a single event as that brings me to wanna be a part of Steamboat Days.

We have the Dangerous Feats of Comedy here again, but otherwise, every year we try to have a new entertainment act.

So like this year, we have The Unicycling Unicorn.

It is a, you know, solo act.

He is also street performer, so that's beautiful.

I'm able to have him work right alongside Dangerous Feats.

So they perform back-to-back throughout multiple locations here at the carnival.

But then of course, just to my right is a trampoline stunt act called Flippin' Out.

It's their first year here and super proud to have them here.

And next year we're hoping to have four or more entertainment acts free and open to the public.

I am an immigrant to Winona.

I'm not a Winona native.

I moved here in 2013 and within six months of moving here, I fell in love with Winona.

I moved here after Steamboat Days of 2013.

I moved here in August of 2013, so I missed Steamboat Days.

However, as soon as I saw Boats and Bluegrass, as soon as I saw the Shakespeare Festival, the Frozen River Film Festival, and just the scenery between the bluffs, the beautiful lakes, the river, I fell in love with this community instantly.

And as soon as I found out about Steamboat Days and I got drawn into it just doing security, I found my place.

This is my home.

And I feel that Winona Steamboat Days is my way of thanking Winona for welcoming me here.

Making me feel at home.

(crowd cheering and applauding) (upbeat band music) ♪ Oh, hey, hey ♪ (spirited music) (pensive music) (upbeat music) - [Speaker] We are at the Breakfast Barn in Millville, Minnesota.

(upbeat music) (hash sizzling) - We're very laid back here, small town Millville.

We can't take anything seriously.

We run it very professional, but very laid back.

- How was Milwaukee?

- Milwaukee was good.

- Milwaukee- - Went to the... We went to Lake Michigan, went to the beach a lot, went to the zoo, did good.

The regulars come in, they have fun.

Local community, they come from, you know, the farm, and they're just fun to be around.

So we enjoy conversating with them.

I think they've sold like 40 of 'em this year already.

- Really?

- Yeah.

- Holy moly.

- And they can't get more golf carts in because they're so backed up.

Also customers, they come from all over the place.

Like Rochester, Lake City, Wabasha area, from all over.

(Sara chuckling) (upbeat music) Hi, Phyllis.

Serving customers.

We gotta make sure it's a clean environment, make sure it's sanitized, make sure everybody's happy with their food.

If they're not, we send it back.

We make sure everybody's having a good experience here at Breakfast Barn because I want them to come back.

(upbeat music) You guys want more coffee?

- I'll have a little more.

- Thank you, my dear.

- Yes, I'll have some more coffee.

Thanks, Sara.

- Thanks, Sara.

- You're welcome.

- Thank you, Sara.

- We have a lot of customers that come through just driving through, driving through the little town of Millville.

Millville, it's population is about a little over a hundred people in a valley.

So anywhere coming to Millville, you're going down a hill.

No cell service at all.

Very nice, we got bluffs and trees all around us.

- We both had accounting jobs, so we had office jobs.

And I don't know, we were just kinda sick of just having an office job.

So we decided, the Millville Cafe was for sale at that time, so we decided to buy the Millville Cafe.

I think it took about six months to get our business plan.

We went to Foresight Bank in Plainview and then they gave us a loan, and here we are.

We've had challenges.

The first six months were hard because we didn't know anything about the restaurant industry at all.

We just jumped into it, and we're still here, so.

(chuckles) (pensive music) - You wear many hats here.

(people chattering) (machine beeping) If we're busy out here and something's happening in the kitchen where if we don't have a dishwasher or a freezer goes down, something, we have to stop.

We have to make sure everything's running well as we're serving customers with a smile on our face.

You wanna sit here?

- Sure.

- Sure.

Okay.

- Thanks for joining me.

(Sara chuckling) - [Sara] We do all breakfast only.

The huge thing here are skillets.

(ham sizzling) - My favorite meal is french toast and sausage links.

Omelets, my wife likes the veggie omelet or you got a ham and cheese omelet and also eggs and bacon and, yeah, quite a variety of good stuff here.

- We make a lot of skillets.

It's hash browns at the bottom and then meat, veggies, cheese, eggs, and then gravy on top of it.

I make the gravy, all on a big plate.

We do french toast, a lot of like raspberry, blueberry, stuffed french toast.

- The food is great.

The food is homemade.

It's all fresh and the Breakfast Barn is just the place to go.

- You know all the people and it's pretty safe environment down here.

Right now we've got the Wabash County Sheriff Department coming in here, (chuckles) so you know it's really safe here, so.

- My favorite food here is Half a Senior Skillet and it's just almost too much to eat at Half a Senior Skillet.

I've never tackled the Full Senior Skillet and likely will not.

- I'm here on this Friday to just have coffee hour with my friends.

(lively music) (people chattering) And it's a good time.

And it's wonderful to get out to see your friends.

And we do it and we just do a lot of laughing and just get together.

- You know, it's just the local people, they wanna connect.

They wanna possibly hear about something that might've happened last night or in the last couple of weeks.

And then once you get to know 'em, I mean, you certainly feel like they're friends and you're more part of the community.

- You guys doing okay?

- Sure.

- [Rodney] And certainly that's what we wanna do in law enforcement is connect with the community.

- My favorite thing about the Breakfast Barn is the community.

It's a small community and I get to serve them and I like the customers.

I like that I'm my own boss.

I like cooking.

I can be creative in my own way.

You have to be dedicated, so you also make your own decisions, your own hours.

(pensive music) - Well, it's important for the cafe to be here for the social aspect of people getting together, especially older people there.

They've got chance to go visit with their friends and neighbors.

- [Interviewer] What's it like working with Sara?

(Kay laughing) Yeah, I don't know if I can answer that one.

(laughing) Are you gonna ask her this question?

- Sara, what are you gonna say about me?

- Working with Kay is very interesting.

I think we have two completely different personalities, but somehow it meshes well.

We've had our good days and we've had our bad days.

- Working with Sara and the rest of my family, it's nice.

We do get to spend time together, joke, talk about our day.

(lively music) - We have to be a team and at the end of the day, it's all about the customers, you know, where she's cooking.

I'm out here serving the customers, where we go back and forth.

She makes sure the food's cooked well and then I'm back there, I'm helping with the finishing, the making the toast, and different things like that, finishing off the plates and then serving it to the customer.

I mean, we get annoyed with each other, but that's just how it goes.

I don't know if you wanna see the normal sister dynamic around here.

(chuckles) It might be a little interesting.

If there's a stressful day going on, we're gonna be at each other's throat, we're gonna be bickering, but at the end of the day, she's my sister.

So we figure it out and we move forward.

(lively music) The last eight years that we've been open, the money that we've brought in, we put back into the cafe, remodeled the two apartments.

So when the next owners come in, unlock the door, order their food, and they're good to go.

Everything's up to standard with electrical, the equipment.

And then we have an established community of customers.

They're loyal, very loyal customers.

- [Suzie] When you think about the Breakfast Barn, you just think of homemade good food, conversation, family, and just get together.

- [Rodney] This restaurant means so much to this small town.

And certainly there's people that come from at least 20 miles away or more to come down here for the atmosphere.

This is Rural Minnesota, Rural Midwest.

This is grassroots at its finest and the people that own this exemplify that in regards to how they treat people.

- The owners, Sara and Kay do a great job, very social there.

With their friendliness and good food, hard to beat.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music) (spirited music) - [Announcer] Funding for this program is provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.