The Occidental Hotel started as a couple of tents along Clear Creek, at the foot of Wyoming’s Bighorn Mountains. Charles Buell, a carpenter from Wisconsin, made camp in 1879, just three miles from the new Fort McKinney. As was often the case, an “army town”...
The Social Haus experience is like one of those strange dreams where two worlds merge. I’m sipping an elderberry cocktail under the warm glow of chandeliers, watching artisanal chefs prepare cuts of meat, fresh herbs, and broths at a bustling open-kitchen bar. I could be...
The first time I dined at Maison, my partner and I couldn’t stop laughing. It was April and the gunmetal sky promised rain. Maybe snow. We’d been trudging around in the mud all day, weeding, pruning, wrestling with winter-rotten rhubarb, hoping spring might someday come....
Chris Murphy was 13 when he started washing dishes at the Continental Divide, and he went on to wait tables there through college. Back then, in the late 1980s and ’90s, it was a hole-in-the-wall, with 10 tables and a bar next door where you...
Blackbird Kitchen has been a staple and locals’ favorite in downtown Bozeman, Montana since opening its doors in 2009. Their secret? Simply good food. Head chef Kenan Anderson stays within their formula for success by creating vegetable-forward menus that change with the seasons and feature...
Thirty miles north of Big Sky and just south of Bozeman, Montana, a fabled landmark started a new chapter in the fall of 2020. Today, Stacey’s Old Faithful Bar & Steakhouse offers a combination of history, community, good food, and camaraderie with the charm of...
As a resident of Big Sky, Montana for more than 20 years, I’ve learned to appreciate all of the recent additions to the area’s commercial landscape. More restaurants and shops mean more choices and, overall, that’s a good thing for those of us who live...
Bigger, yet very much the same — down to the cozy wooden booths, the bar setup, and the enormous moody blue Dale Livezey painting on the back wall — the newly remodeled bar and waiting area of On Broadway in downtown Helena, Montana, feels like...
The atmosphere of 1889 encourages variety: On any given night, you’ll see everything from steak-and-wine dates to boisterous gatherings of sun-kissed river rats sipping microbrews. The steakhouse on the corner of Higgins Avenue and Front Street in downtown Missoula is housed in the historic Mercantile...
I watched in wonder and anticipation as the historic Art Deco building on Mendenhall and Willson in Bozeman, Montana, stood covered: first in scaffolding, then draped with cloth. Built in 1941 to house the 163rd Infantry Regiment of the Montana National Guard during World War...