As she laughs and kids as I struggle to correctly spell her name, it's hard to believe Doreen Gripentrog, bartender at the Dixie Inn in Shelby, was ever a shy, small-town girl.
But as we discuss her long, distinguished career in the hospitality trade, she says it was precisely this attribute which drew her to the business in the first place.
"I was really shy when I first started," Doreen says, recalling her first job at the Deck Inn in Havre, "but the work drew me out of that. I found I really enjoyed talking to people, taking care of people.
"It was really gratifying to see the transformation in myself--being more outgoing, being able to talk to people," she continues. "It was a gradual process, but pretty soon it was more like going out and having a good time than going to a job. And, of course, I was making pretty good money doing it."
Doreen grew up in a large family in Shelby, one of six children of Grace and John Gripentrog, a bank bookkeeper and high school biology teacher, respectively. Following graduation, she moved to Billings where she attended Eastern Montana College (now MSU-Billings), receiving an Associate's degree in business administration in 1993.
She was working as a bookkeeper in Havre, "not making much money," when a friend told her about a waitressing position in the tavern of the Deck Inn. In a few months, she was transferred to the wine room where she began her career as a bartender.
"I was just looking for a summer job," she says with a laugh, "but I enjoyed it so much I wound up staying six years."
A few months before her 29th birthday, Doreen decided to move to California with her boyfriend, and spent eight years in Sacramento and San Francisco, working for mail houses and exploring the strange new world of big cities.
Doreen had two children in California--Tara, now 14, and Sarah, 12--and when her relationship with their father started to sour, she decided to move back home where the cost of living was more reasonable and where she would have the support of her extended family.
Again, Doreen says, she looked to the hospitality business for income while she paid off her debts and settled into her new life as a single mother. She started out bartending at Cecil's in Kevin, a small village north of Shelby, but that was just a temporary job while her brother-in-law, the tavern's owner and namesake, helped a friend harvest his crops.
At the end of the summer, she heard about an opening at the Dixie Inn in Shelby, applied, got the job, and has remained for the past seven years. Her experiences in that time, she says, have been overwhelmingly positive.
"The Dixie is a different kind of bar," Doreen says. "We're located by two big motels and a truck stop so we see a lot of customers just passing through--tourists over the summer, truck drivers and, of course, regulars from Shelby.
"It's fun not seeing the same faces night after night and I get to talk to people from all over the place--Germany, Scotland, Ireland, Canada, and Americans from all over."
Doreen says she's proud of her establishment, which fits her basic criteria for a successful hospitality business: prompt and friendly service, good food, kind clientele.
Asked what she values in other people's establishments, she quickly responds, "Prompt service."
"You should always treat people how you like to be treated," she continues.
A long-time single parent, Doreen says she's learned how to deal with customers who get out of line: "I threaten them with my spanking hand," she says with a laugh.
Speaking more seriously, she says she rarely has problems with her customers, who "are not there to get totally trashed," but rather to talk, laugh and have a good time.
When she's not working, Doreen likes to take walks around Shelby with her mother and, more recently, drive her new Oldsmobile Alero--"a 2003, as close to a new car as I've had"--up to Glacier Park with her daughters for day hikes.
As we wrap up our interview, Doreen says she thinks profiles like the one you're reading are important to show that "we're just regular people trying to make a living in the bar business."
"The bar I work in isn't just drinking and food," Doreen says. "It's a place to gather and visit, see friends, play darts, shuffleboard. You can drink a little bit, play some games and have fun. You can make it positive.
"There are other entertainment options around--golfing, bowling, outdoor sports--but if you look at it, there are 11 taverns in the town. We must be doing something right.
"People get something out of it and, for the most part, it's a positive thing."
Source: Sept. 2004 Inside Gaming Montana,
a quarterly magazine for workers in the hospitality business, published by Continental Communications, 125 W. Granite St., Suite 102, Butte, MT 59701.