Neil Daniels

The restaurant offered two "soft openings" last week, said Neil Daniels, Shetek Bend president.One of the openings was for the people who worked to make the restaurant ready for its opening, and the other was for Shetek Bend investors.The purpose of the soft openings, said Daniels, was to find out what worked and what didn't before opening to the public.
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Daniels said that in addition to evening and weekend events, Shetek Bend will do dinner events during the day by appointment.

Daniels said the menu at Shetek Bend will start smaller, and work its way up as the restaurant gets on its feet.The regular menu includes favorites such as burgers and steaks.

"We're starting out with a nice selection," he said.

One planned menu addition is pizza, which Daniels expects to be online 30 to 60 days down the road.

"We're going to do a few things right first," he explained.

"On weekends, business is heavier," said Neil Daniels, Shetek Bend's general manager."The supper crowd has been good to us."

The busy schedule shouldn't come as a surprise.Thanks to a lot of hard work by Tracy area investors, Shetek Bend is stepping up to fill the hole left in the community when the Mediterranean Club closed its doors a year ago.

So far, Daniels says, the banquet hall and ballroom have hosted events from around the area, from Marshall to Tyler, Slayton and Springfield.

"Tracy seems to be a central point for a lot of people," he said.

The whole process of creating Shetek Bend began with community support, Daniels said.A group of local investors met to discuss building a new bar and restaurant in Tracy not long after the popular Mediterranean Club went out of business.

"We started with a core group," Daniels said.
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Most of the remodeling was done in Minntronix's old office areas, where lots of partitions had been put up, Daniels said.Other spots, like the area where the ballroom is now, were much more open.

"The building was basically intact," he said.

Several investors helped out with remodeling personally, Daniels added.

"We had a carpenter, an electrician, an interior decorator - everything we needed, it seemed like someone in the investors' group could do," he said."We have a unique group.A lot of blood, sweat and tears went into this."

Community support has also helped to direct Shetek Bend's service, Daniels said.Originally, the establishment was supposed to have a sports-bar feel to it, but public input pointed toward more of a family dining atmosphere.Now, big-screen TVs share space with a steam engine mural symbolic of the railroad town.

Since Shetek Bend opened in February, Daniels says the crowds have been pretty good for both the restaurant and the Tracy area.

"We get a lot of people in on the weekends," Daniels said."I think we've helped grocery stores, bars and definitely restaurants in the area, because sometimes we can't get them all in here."

Shetek Bend's dining area seats about 250 people, Daniels said, with room for 450 in the banquet hall and ballroom.

Shetek Bend employs a staff of 32 people.So far the crew has done an excellent job, Daniels says, especially bar manager Lezlee Wells and head cook Bjorn Christensen.
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Hopefully, Daniels said, business at Shetek Bend will continue to increase through the summer months.In the meantime, they have plans to add pizza to the grill's menu of burgers, steaks and sandwiches, and are considering booking live music performances.

For now, it looks as though Shetek Bend has a good future, especially with the amount of community support it has generated.

"A banquet hall has been missed in this area," Daniels said.