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Pat Lindquist and Jill Skogheim at the 5-8 Club

When my favorite p.r. flack invited me to lunch at the 5-8 Club, I couldn't say no. Pat Lindquist is everything a flack should be - bold and brassy and platinum blond, and she sends out great press releases with LOTS OF CAPITAL LETTERS AND EXCLAMATION MARKS!!!

Pat and I have been working in the same town for over 30 years, and we have never had lunch together. She started writing about restaurants for Skyway News right around the time I started writing for the Twin Cities Reader (1976), and she started her p.r. business, Lindquist & Associates in 1984, the same year I went to work for the Minneapolis Star & Tribune.

I figured, at a place like the 5-8 Club, the story is likely to be more interesting than the food, and what better way to get the story than to sit down with the woman who runs the place. The story that 5-8 Club operations manager Jill Skogheim hired Pat to tell is about the neighborhood tavern's 80^th birthday, and Pat has really put her heart into this one, dreaming up three whole months (almost) of promotions.

The fun starts off on Saturday, September 27 with a live Elvis Tribute show and dinner (as opposed to, say, a dead Elvis tribute and dinner?). Cost is $20 for dinner and a show, including one beverage or $10 for just the beverage and show. The 5-8 Club started as an illegal speakeasy in 1928, and became a legal tavern with the end of Prohibition in 1933. Two more branches have opened - the 5-8 Tavern and Grill in Maplewood in 2002, and the 5-8 Grill and Bar in Champlin in 2004. (The new joints have a full bar, and broasted chicken; the original only serves wine and beer.)

Other highlights of the celebration calendar include a Juicy Lucy eating contest October 1-15, free burgers for veterans on Veterans Day, November 11; and the creation of the world's largest Juicy Lucy at the Maplewood 5-8 Club on Saturday, November 15. There's lots more - check the website at www.5-8Club.com for details.

I did insist on buying my own lunch, to hold onto a small shred of journalistic integrity, but Pat and Jill helpfully ordered (almost) everything else on the menu, and insisted that I try just a bite of the onion strings and a taste of the shrimp basket and a bite of the ice cream pie.

Maybe more than just a bite. I was grateful when my half-pound Juicy Lucy arrived, because I couldn't stop eating the onion straws ($5.99) - a huge pile of thinly sliced onions, dusted in flour and deep-fried. The Juicy Lucy, a burger stuffed with cheese, is a controversial subject: it's the signature dish at Matt's Bar, a few miles away at 3500 Cedar Ave., which bills itself as the "Home of the Original Jucy Lucy" - (note the different spelling). Skogheim says that nobody really knows who created the original Juicy Lucy, and that some old-timers say it might have been the old Rube's Bar on Chicago Ave. - now known as Adrian's. Skogheim is confident that the Juicy Lucy did originate somewhere in south Minneapolis, sometime in the 50s.

At any rate, the 5-8 doesn't make any claim to be first. "Our slogan is, "It's What's On The Inside That Counts." And, she added pointedly, "We use real cheese. We don't use Velveeta." (As if Velveeta were a bad thing.) She recommended the blue cheese version, made with Amablu cheese from Faribault, made from raw milk, and aged in sandstone caves. The burger, ordered medium rare, was delicious, as was my sample bite of the Swiss cheese version - and a bargain at $4.99. (You can add fries and coleslaw for $1.99.) This one was not as greasy as some versions I have had in the past; Amablu must be lower in fat than Velveeta.

I was also impressed with the shrimp basket - seven good-sized shrimp, panko breaded and deep-fried, served with fries and coleslaw for $6.95.

The 5-8 Club, 5800 Cedar Ave. S., Minneapolis, 612-823-5858.