Our Story
Bonfire was created by a couple of friends who shared the dream of creating a place to work, eat, celebrate and cater to friends around the Twin Cities. Linda Young and Charlie Burroughs envisioned a traditional Midwest casual supper club style steak house where the meal served to you sent you home stuffed—a concept grown in the Parker House restaurant where Linda’s parents, Janette and Axel, both worked. Linda and Charlie bought the property of the Parker House and opened Axel’s River Grill Mendota with friends and family at their sides. Their dream kept growing as they opened a second Axel’s Restaurant in Chanhassen and aided in development of a third Axel’s in the Radisson Hotel in Roseville owned by the Nath Family.
This was the beginning of Linda and Charlie’s relationship with the Nath Family. The Nath Family was looking for a restaurant to compliment the service style of their family owned Radisson in Roseville, MN. Together, Linda, Charlie and the Nath Family worked on development of the Axel’s Family of Restaurants. During that time, Axel’s Bonfire, Rudy’s Red Eye and Lucky’s 13 were born. In 2008 and joined with Linda and Charlie to own and operate the Axel’s Family of Restaurants. Today, the Nath family owns three Axel’s Restaurants and six Axel’s Bonfire restaurants. They also license two Axel’s restaurants as well as the Bonfire restaurant in the Minneapolis/St. Paul Airport. The Nath family passionately leads the operations and development of the Axels Family of Restaurants with the traditional family values, great food and quality service that has been the Axel’s way since 1996.