Russ Kendall's Smoke House
Smoked fish, seafood market · 149 Scenic Drive, Knife River, MN 55609
About Russ Kendall's Smoke House
Russ Kendall's Smoke House at 149 Scenic Drive has been curing fish in Knife River since W.T. Kendall opened it in 1908, and it has stayed in the family across four generations.
Read the format before you drive up. This is a counter and a retail case, not a restaurant. You order smoked salmon or lake trout, it comes on a paper tray with crackers, and you eat it standing outside or in the car looking at the lake. There is no dining room and there never has been.
That refusal to become something else is most of why it has outlasted nearly everything on this shore. For a great many people driving up the North Shore, the smokehouse is Knife River, and it is one of the oldest continuously operating food businesses on the Minnesota side of Lake Superior.
Hours and seasonal schedule shift, as they do everywhere on this coast.
Good to know: smoked salmon, smoked lake trout, seafood counter, takeaway only, North Shore institution.
Neighborhoods it serves
212 people, a working harbor, and the smokehouse that has been curing fish here since 1908.
Two HarborsThe North Shore's working town: ore docks, a lighthouse, and a real grocery store.
North Shore (Duluth)Duluth's last two miles: lakefront on one side of the road, woods on the other.
Where these facts come from
- Explore Minnesota, Russ Kendall's Smoke House accessed 2026-08-13
Last reviewed 2026-08-13 by Guide editorial.