Barbeque and Some History

So Barb Gilbertson Joyce actually had the recipe and she forwarded below, back in 2019.:

“It's amazing how often "The Pub" comes up in conversations!  In fact, just recently we brought barbeque to a get together with Redfieldites here in Sioux Falls.  The recipe I used, was given to me by Doris McNutt, as she had worked at the Pub for some time (as I recall) and had made barbeques there, many times.  In later years, she lived across the street from Randy's mom, Argie.  One day about 15 years ago, maybe, I saw her outdoors and asked her if she would give me the Pub barbecue recipe, as it had been so popular.  She gave it to me from memory but said she wasn't certain if she had forgotten anything, and amounts were not given.  (!) It turns out great every time.  

"Doris (Benning) McNutt shared with her:

2 lbs ground beef

Onion, quite a bit

Tomato soup, 1 can

Brown the meat; chop in onion.

Add soup to meat/onion.

Seasoning: 

Worcestershire sauce, 1 Tbs

Oregano, 1/2 tsp to 1 tsp

Salt, pepper

*Want it spicy. Start with these amounts. May want to add more."

My sister Carole reminded me that they were sloppy Joes but everybody called them barbecues.  Also they were referred to as ‘loose meat.’ My mom made them at first but I believe Doris took over making them later when she went to work for my dad.  So I guess it was originally Mom's recipe.  But we have no clue of the details.  But if you google sloppy joe there are a wealth of different recipes. My sister had kept in touch with Doris.  Doris' husband Dale and my dad were very close friends.  They were fierce competitors on the golf course.  My dad was crushed when Dale died of cancer. Doris has since passed also.

Remember Pub#1 on the first floor of a large two story red brick building on the SW corner of main and 7th?  I remember the big mural on the inside south wall with the dogs playing poker.  And John Hartford (future Redfield cop) tending bar.

My dad used to let me hang out in there, and would give me rolls of pennies to sort through for my coin collection (which I still have).  Harold Terry (my uncle) used to do the same with me in Terry's bar, after I finished all of dad's pennies I would go over there.  At the age of 9, I guess I was a "street kid."  Bouncing around from bar to bar.  HA

Pub#1 was later torn down and became the parking lot for the (new) Red Owl.  I think the Red Owl was relocated there from the NE corner of 6^th and main. It was directly across the street (west) from the Coleman building.  The Coleman building had a furniture store on first floor and 8 apartments upstairs.  I used to deliver papers up there.  Alice Switzenberg lived in an apartment there.  Remember her?  8th grade math I think.  She had a wine bottle in her desk drawer and would take a nip between classes. She must have taught me well as I sailed through 3 semesters of calculus, differential equations and advanced engineering math.

When that building was torn down, my dad bought a two story building on the alley next to the gas station on 7th and 1st St N.  It used to have a beauty parlor on first floor and apartments above.  It became Pub #2. It was quite nice.  I bar tended there briefly the summer between Freshman and Sophomore years at SDSU.  Part of the deal was that the new Red Owl rented space on one corner of their new building for my dad's new liquor store.  Funny, my dad hired my mom to work the liquor store. She eventually got fired for refusing to sell liquor to anyone who she personally deemed should not have it. Yup that was mom.

The Pub#2 was a wooden frame building, greenish color I think.  The Pub in that building had a drive up window in the alley.  It burned in a fire later in 1969.  Coincidentally it burned on the same evening that the JC Penny's was broken into and robbed of $5000.  For quite a spell the police erroneously tried to link the two events together.

Turns out that it was an electrical fire.  And the Penny's store was robbed by the manager's 10 year old son who hid in the store after closing and had memorized the combination of the safe while looking over his dad's shoulder.  HA !!  You just can't make this stuff up.  His dad figured it out when he saw the kid riding a new expensive bicycle that he was keeping at a friend's house.

Andersen's cleaners had a little shit hole building right behind the Pub#2 that burned, and my dad bought that from John for $4000 and converted it to Pub#3.  That one operated until my dad retired around 1978 time frame.  He sold it to a guy named Aesoph from Highmore who had underworld connections and eventually was the victim of a hit and got buried in the desert somewhere near Las Vegas. I don't remember what happened to the Pub after that.  It may have just faded away.   I think so.

Is this a soap opera script or what?