Lucia Watson ‘72 has devoted much of her life to cooking and thirty years to the Minneapolis food scene-defining restaurant, Lucia’s. Former general manager at Lucia’s and owner of Heather’s, Heather Asbury believes, “She was a pioneer… [and] was one of the first people in the country to do a farm-to-table.”
A drive for fresh ingredients and the value of local produce was implanted in her from a young age. Watson recalls her cabin on the Canadian border, saying, “My grandmother would spend a lot of time in the kitchen cooking, so I just hung out with her and loved to cook.” To get materials for the kitchen, Watson and her grandmother had to “go out and pick blueberries and cook with them or catch fish and cook with them.” This instilled “a notion that all ingredients are precious” and that food is “precious [because] it’s going to nurture you. It’s taken a lot to grow it.”
This sense of food value led her to pursue the food industry. In her first job, she worked in Virginia as a hostess. According to her, “I was always sort of bothering the chef like, ‘if you ever need help you know I can come in and cook.’” Finally, the chef caved and allowed her to perform menial tasks such as peeling carrots, which she loved because she “just loved being in a kitchen.”
After working in the catering business, she decided to open her own restaurant in Uptown Minneapolis because she thought “I want people to come to me. I don’t want to go to them.” Originally, the space she used was tiny, but over the years, she “made it four times bigger than what it was when [she] originally opened.”
In the early years, she would change the menu daily, and write out cards with the menu for two reasons. She describes, “I didn’t want a restaurant where it was always the same.” The second philosophy for changing constantly was to be “driven by what was locally available from the farmers,” which was unique at the time because “there actually weren’t a lot of small farms at that time.” Frequently, people misunderstand what produce comes from Minnesota and believe summer is the only time farm-to-table is possible, but Watson explains that “in the winter… we have all the wonderful things like braised meats and beans and stored root vegetables and the things that we naturally crave in the winter.”
As Asbury recalls, “[Watson] went around and studied [everything she put on her menu].” Watson remembers looking for local butter and finding a place called Hope Creamery. There, she found an older man named Victor who “stopped the churn and he’d pull out a fistful of butter and he’d throw it in this bucket and if it wasn’t doing the right thing he’d know it needed another 20 minutes.” She looks back on it as incredible butter, and due to her picking up the brand, they are now common in grocery stores. Empowering and using local resources allowed for better flavor and local business growth.
Another key aspect of Lucia’s was Watson’s curiosity about other people and cultures. As she describes, “I always wanted to learn. I still do, not just cooking, but everything.” When anyone, whether it was an employee, front of the house, back of the house… [would say] ‘I can make this,’ I’d ask how.” She recalls when a worker who had worked for a couple of years mentioned his grandmother made soba noodles. She berated him with questions, asking “What’d she do? How’d she do it? Does she live here? Can she come in and show us how to make soba noodles?” She decided, “Let’s put it on the menu and have someone make soba noodles.” Enthusiastically, she recalls “They were so good.”
The final major aspect of Lucia’s was the environment. She always wanted her workers to be proud of the restaurant and the food. She used to tell employees if they ever lost pride, “You have two choices: either tell me or quit because I don’t want anyone on my payroll or working for me that doesn’t take pride in what we’re doing here.” She also ensured a fun environment among the employees. She describes, “For me, it was a really fun place to work even though it was really hard too and I think for my employees it was really fun as well.” Per Watson: “I didn’t want an uptight vibe there. It wasn’t a white tablecloth, sophisticated, snooty kind of place. I would tell my staff I want a friendly neighborhood place where people can get amazing food at a reasonable price.”
In 2016, Watson decided she had worked so hard that she did not know herself outside Lucia’s. Because of this realization, she decided to sell Lucia’s and retire. As a retiree, she says “I love what I’m doing and how I’m spending my time and I love taking naps.” She has moved onto a completely different field with the Raptor Center and the University of Minnesota where she works rehabilitating birds. She also serves on the board of The Conservatory Program. She still has restaurant-influenced moments like she was asked to prepare food for the rats fed to the birds. She describes, “[I] went in and I brought my knives and I was like, ‘I’ve never prepped food before for rats’ so I prepped [the food for] these rats perfectly, I used my good knives and they were perfectly prepped and laid out.”
Valuing food as exceptional and looking local allowed Lucia’s to become a pioneering restaurant for 30 years in the Minneapolis food scene. An important part of looking local was the ingredients and the recipes. Recipes of cultures found around the Twin Cities mixing pot allowed for expansive culture among her fast-changing menu. These fundamentals have become cornerstones of the farm-to-table movement locally and nationally.
