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LEIF ENGER: The community of Dorset in Central Minnesota near Park Rapids is as quiet as you'd expect a town of 38 people to be. This cold afternoon in the dark of December, the half dozen buildings on Main Street are locked except for the gas station at the edge of town. A hanging plywood sign advertising free parking squeals back and forth in the wind. No one's in sight, but a solemn black mutt unhurriedly crossing the street.

But let the day get a little bit older, a little darker, a little colder, and things begin to change. The lights blink on at the cafe, and folks start showing up. Some from nearby. Some not.

The Dorset Cafe's got nightly specials. It's got Oprah Winfrey on the big screen. And it's got an owner Bob Price, who says this town is a gold mine.

BOB PRICE: People say when a bank or a school leaves, the whole town folds. Not so in Dorset. The school left many years ago. The bank left a few years ago. And not meaning this real derogatory, but after the bank left, Dorset prospered.

LEIF ENGER: Prosperity, Price says, has arrived in Dorset by the plateful. Food is the draw. Steak sandwiches here. Enchiladas and burritos at the Mexican place across the street, or something more genteel at the tea room next door.

You won't find any manufacturers or other such industry here. But most locals say that doesn't matter. There are five restaurants in Dorset. One for every eight residents. The owners call this the food capital of the world.

BOB PRICE: Hey, when you're the food capital, what do you do? You eat. You think Dorset. You get hungry. It's Dorset. What do you do?

LEIF ENGER: Price agrees that Dorset's success is relative. After all, his cafe, the gas station, and the old school house bed and breakfast are the only businesses that stay open the year round. But the fact is that Dorset is busier now than it's been since the wood pulp trains stopped going through almost 20 years ago.

In the winter, most of the people you see here are locals. But in the summer, when the nearby lakes grow crowded with vacationers, Dorset is a town for tourists. Hank Todd is director of the Minnesota Office of Tourism.

HANK TODD: It's developing a niche, or a reputation, or a hook kind of thing. And you'll get people to travel great distances for that. And I think that's the kind of thing. They started out with the-- on the food angle. The restaurants providing quality service. Quality food. The kinds of things that people will place a value on and be willing to go for it. And then, it grew.

LEIF ENGER: Dorset, Todd says, is a town that's done everything right. It picked one service and concentrated on it. A commercial specialization he predicts will get more common in the '90s. The growth of tourism here mirrors that in much of Minnesota.

The state spends eight times as much promoting tourism as it did 10 years ago. Ironically, longtime Dorset observers say the town's success has had little to do with any master plan or state incentive. But instead, with simple large helpings of food and a certain attitude.

VIC OLSON: In one sense, what Dorset is is a state of mind.

LEIF ENGER: Vic Olson is the owner and publisher of the Northwoods Press newspaper in nearby Nevis.

VIC OLSON: The one thing is that no one is going there with their problem. They're not going to see a lawyer because they've been sued, or they have to go to a dentist to have a tooth pulled, or a transmission fixed. You're only going there to eat. Dorset is just where you go to get away from it all.

LEIF ENGER: Olson's contribution to the Dorset state of mind is the Dorset Daily Bugle, which he writes and publishes once a year. The bugle is four pages of Lampoon humor with articles about the latest Elvis sighting in downtown Dorset, or the controversy over the local pro Sports Complex.

VIC OLSON: Yes, there is a big debate whether the Dorset dome really should have a $23-million retractable roof, which is a problem here because most people like the sunshine. And they don't have to go inside to watch the Dorset Dodgers really gets to be a bummer.

SPEAKER 2: Hi.

SPEAKER 3: How are you?

SPEAKER 2: Fine.

SPEAKER 3: How's the leg?

SPEAKER 2: Better.

SPEAKER 3: We're having a real tough--

LEIF ENGER: At the Dorset Cafe, residents Joan Blumberg and Anelle Stejskal are introducing a guest from Duluth to the local cuisine. The cafe is filling up. But Joan and Anelle say this is nothing.

Come back in the summer. Both say they remember when Dorset was a dying town. Now both are believers in the healing properties of home-cooked meals.

JOAN BLUMBERG: Oh god, yes. If you'd see five or six cars in Dorset five years ago--

ANELLE STEJSKAL: Now all roads lead to Dorset.

JOAN BLUMBERG: And now, all roads lead to Dorset. Right.

LEIF ENGER: Dorset resident and restaurant devotee Joan Blumberg. This is Leif Enger.

JOAN BLUMBERG: Oh, brother.