Rolling On

Two UND women are giving Scandinavian tradition new life.

Lefse Made With Love

For Angeline Riley, ’22, and her brother, John, the biggest challenge isn’t getting customers to try lefse. It’s making enough of it. 

Nearly three years after launching Loving Lefse in Boise, Idaho, the Rileys have outgrown a tent and a food trailer. In July, they expanded into a 3,000-square-foot brick-and-mortar restaurant.

“Our main problem has been selling out of lefse,” Angeline said.

The idea for Loving Lefse grew out of pre-Thanksgiving family gatherings, where the Rileys made lefse from a five-generation-old recipe.
While they still use Nana’s recipe, the pair has found creative ways to serve the traditional Norwegian potato flatbread.

“Lefse is super versatile. It’s almost like a vessel,” Angeline said.

Menu items range from pizza lefse to dessert creations, but her favorite is the breakfast lefse — filled with chorizo, eggs, bacon, beef-tallow fries, and house-made chipotle mayo. 

Angeline estimates that about 70% of Loving Lefse’s customers are trying lefse for the first time. For the 30% already familiar with lefse, she enjoys reintroducing them to a food that often brings back memories.

“We have people visit in tears saying, ‘My lefse recipe died with my grandma and I haven’t had it for 20 years,’” she said.

From UND to Idaho

After one season on the UND softball team, Angeline shifted focus to her studies — adding entrepreneurship as a second major to her business management degree.
When assigned to write a business plan, she developed one for Loving Lefse. The idea earned top honors in the Middleton Business Plan Competition, where UND students showcase their ideas and gain hands-on experience.

Angeline discovered a passion for specialty coffee while working at Bully Brew Coffee in Grand Forks. Today, Loving Lefse serves coffee from North Dakota Coffee Roastery.

“All the other coffee shops source their beans locally,” she said. “But I source mine from a special place in my heart. And they have really good beans.”

That place is tied to Sandi Luck, ’15, owner of Bully Brew and North Dakota Coffee Roastery, who mentored Angeline and attended Loving Lefse’s grand opening in Boise.

Angeline and her brother John, a Boise State business graduate, decided Boise was the perfect place to launch Loving Lefse.

“It’s the Potato State and lefse is a potato flatbread, so it made sense,” Angeline said.

A Lefse Leap of Faith

Owning Mrs. Olson’s Lefse was not part of Anna Simmers’ life plan.

But when the opportunity arose to buy the family business, she and her husband took a “leap of faith.” 
“It’s been the best thing in my life,” she said.

With degrees in recreation and leisure services and special education, Anna (McIntyre), ’07, ’10, taught for 12 years before becoming a stay-at-home mom.
“I didn’t realize it was okay to change professions; that you can grow and do something different.”

Mrs. Olson 1959

Mrs. Olson’s Lefse has operated as a small-town family business since its founding in 1959. Today, it occupies the former Winsor Township School and two adjoining warehouses in Gonvick, Minnesota.

The company uses locally sourced ingredients, including regionally grown potatoes and flour milled nearby. While lefse is produced year-round, the busiest season runs from Labor Day through New Year’s Day, when the plant produces about 3,000 pounds each day for distribution across the country.

Mrs. Olson’s is increasingly promoting lefse as a wrap. “We’re in the process of developing it as a seasoned potato flatbread.” 

The company now supplies larger food-service sheets to restaurants in Portland and Seattle, where lefse is used for sandwiches and burritos. Some chefs have found that lefse holds together better than traditional tortillas. 

Coming Full Circle

Anna said her UND experiences continue to surface in unexpected ways. Classes in recreation and hospitality helped prepare her for the customer-service side of the business.

“I feel like I’ve come full circle,” she said.

And despite overseeing many thousands of pounds of lefse production each year, Anna still thinks back to making lefse with her grandmother for the holidays.