Thousands Of Hungry Sturgis Bikers Boost Churches With Made-To-Order Breakfasts

The parking lot was mostly empty when a group of volunteers from Zion Lutheran Church in Rapid City rolled into Blessed Emmanuel Lutheran Church in Sturgis, South Dakota, at 7 a.m.

Fog hung from the tops of the pine trees like a delicate tablecloth. The air was cool and fresh.

It had rained hard the previous night — an unusual turn during a record-breaking hot and dry summer in the Black Hills — and the motorcycles were slower than usual to begin pulling into the church parking lot for breakfast.

But that morning, like every other morning for the past five days, the core volunteers were ready.

For more than 15 years, the church has opened its doors, its kitchens (first one and then two) and its hard-charging weeklong ministry to bikers looking for a hearty breakfast or dinner.

As an estimated half-million bikers worldwide descend on the otherwise tranquil town of about 7,000 over 10 days, the devoted volunteers at Blessed Emmanuel work tirelessly to cook made-to-order breakfasts for free-will donations.

The week of work funds the bulk of the church’s annual budget.

Soon after 7, the first customers arrived. A lone biker wearing a black T-shirt and faded black jeans placed his breakfast order with church member LuAnn Grossman, who greeted customers beneath an awning outside the church.

Most of the rest of his crew was still back at the campground, he explained, sleeping off the previous night.

“Some of them are in rough shape,” he said.

Grossman smiled, handed the biker a number and gave his order to a runner.

That runner, a middle schooler who will start school next week, made the rounds: First to the outdoor kitchen for eggs, hashbrowns and French toast according to what the order sheet specified, then to the indoor kitchen for bacon, sausage, biscuits and gravy and toast.

A full plate of hot food would soon land in front of the biker to accompany his cup of hot black coffee — a godsend in the morning’s cool and cloudy weather.

By the time the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally is in full swing, Blessed Emmanuel Lutheran Church has become something of a second home for many rallygoers.

Eggs and omelets are cooked to order. Biscuits and gravy. Waffles, bacon, sausage, ham, toast and fruit.

There are tables beneath awnings in the church yard, where bikers can sit outside and swap stories. There is a dining room inside. Volunteers are everywhere – cooking, serving, busing, scraping plates, washing dishes, wiping down tables, visiting with rallygoers.

And there is plenty of coffee.

But the ministry that now feels like a Sturgis institution began with a much humbler purpose.

It started because Blessed Emmanuel needed the money.

From 'Takers' To Givers

Blessed Emmanuel began as a church plant in 2000, a new congregation that relied heavily on financial support from sister churches in the area.

The congregation eventually needed to find a way to support itself.

“For a long time, we were takers,” said Kari Kannenberg, a longtime member of Blessed Emmanuel who has been involved with the breakfast ministry since it started in 2010.

Church members began talking about ways to raise money.

Several saw opportunity in the rally. How could the church serve the scores of strangers who rumble in and out of its little town during one week every year?

In 2010, the congregation began serving meals during rally week, on a wing and a prayer.

The first breakfasts were prepared in the church kitchen, a cramped room about the size of three cubicles.

Volunteers cooked eggs, bacon, sausage, waffles, biscuits and gravy and toast in that tiny space.

A lot of food in a small room.

But the idea caught on. At first, roughly 50 people showed up throughout the week. Then 100 a day. Then 150.

The weeklong fundraiser brought in money the congregation needed. More importantly, it eventually became something bigger than a fundraiser.

Today, proceeds help fund much of Blessed Emmanuel's annual budget, while some of the money is shared with other Lutheran congregations in the area.

“Our parish would not exist without this ministry,” said Pastor Robert Hinckley, who also serves as pastor at Grace Lutheran in Deadwood. “It really puts us on the map.”

The church that once needed supported from other congregations now has something to give.

A Well-Oiled Breakfast Machine

By rally week, the operation at Blessed Emmanuel resembles a small restaurant with a remarkably large volunteer staff. A food inspector from the South Dakota Department of Health examines the property the first day to ensure operations are sanitary.

Volunteers serve breakfast every day from Saturday through Saturday and dinner Monday through Friday. The dinners – one homemade menu item each night – draw a crowd, but the breakfast is where the ministry really shines.

Bikers put in their order with Grossman under the awning just outside the church’s entrance. When someone orders a waffle, Grossman presses a button, which dings in the church kitchen, notifying the volunteer there to pour batter so the waffle is ready when the plate comes.

An entire wall of the dining room is lined with drinks and condiments where customers can help themselves.

The church’s yard is covered with awnings beneath which are scores of folding tables and folding chairs.

After placing an order, each customer receives a number. A volunteer runner then shepherds the order from one kitchen station to the next.

Outside, six cooks work oversized grills.

Once that part of the order is fulfilled, the runner brings the plate (washable, not disposable) to the inside kitchen, where servers further pile on waffles, toast, biscuits and gravy and/or fruit.

“You should have seen our waffle makers the other day,” longtime church member and volunteer Bill Denke said while eating his own breakfast before the Thursday rush. “They got so behind in making waffles.”

The volunteer cooking waffles heard the “ding” so many times the sound followed him home.

“When he got home that day and his doorbell rang, he got up to go make a waffle,” Denke said.

There are plenty of stories like that.

A Week Of Vacation, Cooking Eggs

The ministry requires roughly 10 to 15 volunteers each day, in addition to about 10 core volunteers who show up every day.

Many of those core volunteers are in their 60s and 70s. Some are retired. Others take vacation from their regular jobs.

Denke, a stout man with a weathered face who braids his long beard and always wears a bandanna or cap snug against his scalp, has been cooking eggs and omelets at the rally breakfast for 16 years.

Every August, he takes a week of vacation from his job as an elevator shaft operator at the Sanford Underground Research Facility in nearby Lead.

He trades his regular work clothes for an apron and he spends the week cracking eggs over an oversized griddle.

Kannenberg's husband, Denny, wears an old pair of shoes while working in the outdoor kitchen because, as she puts it, he knows he's going to get eggs all over them.

Quinten Glass, a pharmacist from Rapid City, was on his second day of cooking bacon.

“I'm pretty sure I'll sweat bacon grease the rest of the day,” he said.

But the volunteers don't seem to mind.

They keep coming back.

One day this week, members of the quilt club from Peace Lutheran Church in Rapid City joined them.

One volunteer was 90.

Another was 100.

The 100-year-old volunteer sat on a stool for hours scraping dirty plates.

“Don't talk so loud!” she would say. “My hearing aids are new!”

The ministry even attracts volunteers who aren't affiliated with the church.

Every once in a while, bikers themselves trade a day on the open road for an apron and spatula.

“They see the mission,” Kannenberg said.

The Bikers Know Where To Find Them

In the early years, the church had to work to get the word out.

Kannenberg's husband walked through Sturgis neighborhoods, knocking on doors of homes where motorcycles were parked in the driveway.

Volunteers distributed flyers at campgrounds.

Today, the church puts up large signs around town advertising its free-will-donation meals, and Kannenberg shares information about the breakfasts in biker Facebook groups.

But mostly, the church’s breakfast reputation has spread by word of mouth.

“The biker community knows our church,” Hinckley said, adding that the breakfast ministry has become part of the congregation's identity.

“One guy brings his own tea from England,” Kannenberg said.

Earlier in the week, a Portuguese-speaking couple arrived at the church.

They didn't speak English.

Volunteers pulled out an online translation app, explained the menu and helped the couple place their order.

On Thursday, a handful of members of the Redrum Motorcycle Club came through.

The club, an Indigenous motorcycle organization founded in 2006, emphasizes brotherhood, motorcycling, community, respect, responsibility, fundraising and family.

Then there was Bill Douglas.

Douglas, 83, sat with his daughter, Ashley. The duo had trailered their bikes from Connecticut to Sturgis for Bill’s 25th rally. They got a late start, because Bill had been down and out with a tooth infection.

“We rallied, got some antibiotics and hit the road,” Ashley said.

This is the fifth year they’ve come to Blessed Emmanuel for breakfast – and dinner.

“We eat every meal here,” Bill said.

The Douglases learned about the church breakfasts and dinners from an employee at the Hog Heaven campground, where they always stay.

Trying to beat the rain, they drove through the Black Hills in their truck on one of the rainy days.

“The people who ride bikes only are hard-core,” Ashley said.

Bill told the story of his first motorcycle experience, in Vermont. Every now and then, he’d swat at a fly with a surprising flash of anger.

“There was a crotchety old guy named Curly who owned a farm. We go there and he has this Indian (motorcycle), (dismantled) in a basket of parts.

Well,” Bill said, “we bought the thing. I was in my 20s. We take it home. We (put it together and) got the thing started at one a.m.”

Bill said he rode the motorcycle up and down the driveway.

“The pipe was this long so it had a hell of a noise,” he said, holding his hands out as if measuring the size of a fish.

Ashley looked across the table at her father.

“I can’t believe you took a basket of parts and figured out to put it together,” she said. She had a few bites of French toast to finish.

She had been pulled over two nights in a row – for having a tail light out. The first incident made her and her dad late for the Lynard Skynard concert at the Sturgis Buffalo Chip.

“You hoofed it,” Ashley told her dad, explaining how they had a heck of a walk from the parking lot to the concert venue – once they finally got there. “You were doing better out there than a lot of 60-year-olds.”

Bill smiled, almost shyly. “It's been a good life,” he said. “I don't want to stop.”

More Than A Fundraiser

This year, the breakfast ministry got off to a record-breaking start.

On the first day, volunteers served 386 people.

By Friday, they had served more than 2,000 breakfasts.

The ministry also received a $1,000 check from the Thunder Mountain Wind and Fire motorcycle group from Colorado.

The money only bolsters the little church's ability to keep its doors open.

But after 16 years, it is clear the ministry is about more than any of those things.

It is about the volunteer who takes a week of vacation every year to cook eggs.

The 100-year-old woman who spends hours scraping plates.

The pharmacist who jokes about sweating bacon grease.

The bikers who return year after year.

The Portuguese-speaking couple who needed a translation app.

The man from England who brings his own tea.

And the church that once depended on others to survive and now shares what it has earned with other congregations.

Blessed Emmanuel was once looking for a way to raise money.

Now, a ding in the church kitchen signals yet another waffle order.

And the breakfast rush is underway.

Kate Meadows can be reached at kate@cowboystatedaily.com.