Editorial Stories

John Herzer and Terri Raugland started guiding before they had a shop. Three decades later, clients who fished with them in the 1990s still book trips every summer. Every morning during guide season at Blackfoot River Outfitters, someone has to make a decision most clients never think about. Four major trout rivers converge on Missoula within an hour's drive. Rock Creek might be running high. The Bitterroot might be fishing slow. The Big Blackfoot might be perfect, or it might be blown out from a rainstorm upstream the night before. Somebody has to look at USGS flow data, read the...

Matt Grunow couldn't expand the steakhouse without killing the thing that made it famous. So he walked up the hill and built something else. Lolo Creek Distillery: The Fire Pit Problem That Built a Distillery The fire pit was the problem. Matt Grunow and his father Mike had been running Lolo Creek Steakhouse since 2006, when they bought it from Guy Leibenguth, a family friend who'd built the place in 1987 from 150-year-old trees logged near Lolo Pass. The open wood-fired grill anchored the dining room. It was the centerpiece, the thing that made steaks taste the way they did...

A neurosurgeon built the tables by hand. The neighborhood filled them before there was even an ad. The tables at The Trough on Clements Road in Missoula were built by a neurosurgeon. Carter Beck cut and assembled them himself when he and his wife Susan were converting the old dairy building into a restaurant in 2015. He could have hired it out. He is a practicing neurosurgeon at St. Patrick Hospital, not short on income or demands on his time. But he wanted the tables to feel like something you would find in a farmhouse, not something ordered from a...

Charlie Beaton turned down industrial scale. Thirty years later, each scoop still comes from an 800-square-foot production room. In 2016, Xanterra Parks and Resorts asked Charlie Beaton if Big Dipper Ice Cream could supply lodges in Yellowstone and Glacier national parks. Beaton looked at the volume they needed and knew his shop couldn't come close. His Missoula production room runs about 800 square feet. Xanterra's first order alone called for a 48,000-pound shipment. He could have expanded. Instead, he partnered with Meadow Gold to manufacture a separate brand called Big Dipper Select, built for that volume, while keeping every scoop...

The Heritage of the Still Located on Front Street in downtown Missoula, Montgomery Distillery is a family-owned operation crafting old-world spirits from local Montana grains. Using grains grown on their family farm in nearby Heath, they oversee the entire process from planting to bottle, producing award-winning gin, vodka, and single-malt whiskey that captures the true flavor of the region.

Missoula's Maze of Wonders Walk through the double doors of Rockin' Rudy's, and the sensory overload is immediate. Vinyl records click in their bins, the smell of incense floats from the back corner, and gag gifts share shelf space with local art. For over four decades, Rudy's has served as the heartbeat of Missoula's alternative community. More Than a Record Store Started in 1982, Rockin' Rudy's has survived the rise and fall of cassettes, CDs, MP3s, and streaming, only to see vinyl roar back to life. But it's the sense of community that keeps locals coming back. It's where high...

Black Coffee Was Building Toward the Quonset Hut All Along At the east end of Spruce Street, where downtown Missoula gives way to Lower Rattlesnake, a curved steel building holds a coffee bar and a working roastery under the same roof. Black Coffee Roasting Company did not stumble into that building after the business grew. The company documented wanting it before its original shop opened. By the time Black Coffee finally moved into 525 E Spruce St in December 2014, the relocation was not simply an upgrade to a larger address. It completed a plan that had been sitting behind...