Historic Mankato Pub Crawl: Pub 500

The third spot on the pub crawl was a spot called Pub 500. For a long time, it was a gas station, conveniently located near a tire store (that’s still in business). Today, it’s a pub and restaurant, owned by the same people who own the Happy Chef chain of restaurants. Betcha didn’t know the Happy Chef was based in Mankato, Minn., didya?

At this spot, they enlisted the owner of the restaurant — who told us how the Happy Chef name came to be, too — and a teacher from the old high school. Each had some fun historical things to share.

Here is a link to a PDF about the history of 500-510 Front Street, where Pub 500 is now.

And then we moved on to our final stop of the evening.