Dresch represents three generations in Hardin bar
Pub Date: 11/1/2008
By Cole Boehler
The Four Aces Bar in Hardin, and owners Kim and Jeff Dresch, may typify the business in Montana: Grandparents were in the bar business, parents were in the bar business, current owners are in the bar business, next generation educated and pursuing other careers...bar is for sale.
Kind of sounds like some of the state's farm and ranch operations, too, doesn't it?
We called on Kim Dresch at the Four Aces on a gorgeous mid-October Saturday mid-morning en route to visit a friend's family ranch southeast of Hardin in the Wolf Mountains on the Crow Reservation. Hardin itself lies just outside the reservation boundaries. The winds were calm, the sun was shining and the thermometer would point toward 70 degrees at its apex.
For many raised in western Montana's mountains, the perception is the state's topography becomes flat anywhere east of Great Falls or Billings. For those of us raised on the plains, we respond, "Well, walk across it sometime and then tell me It's flat!"
And this part of the state, about 40 miles south of Billings, isn't far from the Pryor Mountains. You can see the Bighorns of Montana and Wyoming, too.
It's broken up by Rosebud Creek and the Big Horn and Little Big Horn Rivers. It's not far from where Custer and the Seventh Cavalry discovered they badly underestimated the Sioux and Northern Cheyenne and other tribes gathered along the Little Bighorn.
Yes, the real Big Sky Country.
The Four Aces is a small bar in a large building. It does have a comfortable adjacent game room with a pool table, some tables and chairs and a half-dozen gaming machines. It features a small kitchen in back. Next door is a package store run by the Dreschs that is doing a regular business this Saturday morning. Kim handles that counter, too.
The whole place has a well-worn feel'; like It's been a second home to thousands of the town's residents going on more than six decades...which it has.
The massive two-story brick building that occupies half a city block is owned by the Drenchs and has rented office space for a dentist, hair dresser, leasing business and more. Above there are seven rented apartments.
The ornate brick exterior has aged very well and the monolithic structure gives one the impression of great permanence.
It is clear Hardin has seen better times, even though a new gas field and compressor station is being developed nearby and a new Montana-Dakota Utilities coal-fired generating station has been built. But on the town's out skirtssits the decrepit remains of a sugar factory that once processed locally grown sugar beets but went the way of the buffalo that once grazed these hills.
Along with the empty factory is a brand new but empty 420-bed prison facility built by the local economic development authority.
Unfortunately new state initiatives have reduced the number of state prisoners requiring such incarceration and the attorney general's office has ruled it is illegal to import prisoners from out-of-state. There is some light at the end of that tunnel, though, as some headway is being made on getting the facility into operation and local people to work.
And with a modern four-lane leading straight north to Billings, it seems most retail shopping in now done in the metropolitan area.
"Hardin's not losing people, but It's not growing any," Kim says with a touch of resignation.
"There used to be 13 bars and 13 churches in Hardin," Kim says. "But now the churches are way ahead'; there's eight bars left."
Some of these small-town businesses persevere, through hard work and moxy. The Four Aces is one of them.
Kim is asked, so do you still pull five shifts a week?
"No," she replies, not smiling. "Seven."
And how about husband Jeff, who is away at the moment? "Same thing'; seven days a week," she says.
She does admit to taking an occasional weekend off to go see her NFL Broncos, down the road in Denver. Scattered throughout the bar are Bronco-branded souvenirs and memorabilia amid the clutter that typically takes over a Montana saloon that s been in place many decade.
On one wall in a glass case is a signed U of M Grizzlies football jersey that belonged to Troy Bierman. The Hardin High graduate was a star defensive player who graduated last year and made the roster with the NFL Atlanta Falcons as a rookie this year.
"He's been playing special teams but is starting to get more time at defensive end," Kim says. Another Hardin boy who graduated down the road at Colstrip, then U of M last year, Tuff Harris, is signed with the Tennessee Titans.
n fact, Kim and several other cronies are flying to Atlanta to watch the Broncos take on the Falcons in a couple of weeks and to watch the hometown boy who made good.
Part of the "clutter" is a rather complete set (56) of the Jim Beam collector decanters that were widely available and purchased in the 1950s and 60s.
Is the bourbon still in the bottles?
"No, my dad took care of that," Kim says with a chuckle.
Also lining one wall are dozens of softball trophies. For years the Four Aces sponsored a hot-shot women's softball team that frequently contended for state championships. There is no softball league anymore, Kim says, but they do sponsor a women's pool team.
Kim and Jeff met while both were living in Denver and Kim was tending bar at an Elk's Club. They bought the Four Aces in the mid-1970s from Kim's parents, Helen "Snookie" and Kenneth "Sully" Sullivan.
Her parents bought the establishment in 1966, after having sold "The Cort" bar which they bought in the mid-1940s from Kim's grandfather, Harvey Cort, who was a well known and successful sheep rancher who also owned "The Cort" bar in Big Timber.
The original Hardin Cort Bar burned in the 70s, Kim says.
Today Kim says they listed the Four Aces with a real estate broker three or four months ago, though she hasn't seen any tire kickers yet.
im and her sister, Trish, who has worked at the Four Aces almost 40 years, own the building, while Kim and Jeff own the bar/restaurant and package store business, which rents its space.
"The problem is, there's just so much real estate" represented in the building, Kim acknowledges.
Kim says the business makes good money, but that you have to be willing to work it, hands-on. She says the revenues from the three departments food, on-premise and off-premise are about equally split at one-third each, though Kim says the restaurant business keep building, necessitating a kitchen expansion not long ago.
The menu is surprisingly extensive and we note that the prices are quite reasonable: a 21-piece "popcorn" shrimp basket is $5.75, a cheeseburger basket is $4.75. "Prices went up just a couple of months ago," Kim says.
But the chicken dinners are what sets the place apart from other local eateries and gives the place a reputation and draw, Kim says.
"A local guy who worked in Washington, D.C., used to come out hunting every year," Kim relates. "He loved our chicken. He would have us cook up 100 pieces and ship it back to D.C. Then awhile later a couple from D.C. stopped and said, "we've just got to have some of your chicken. And we heard you cook it in a closet!"
If and when the Dreschs long time Montana Tavern Association members, by the way sell the business ("I'll believe it when I see it," Kim says), Kim may do some traveling..."go see the kids, get some sleep, clean my house..."
So after 40 years in the bar business, Kim has a little advice for wannabe bar owners: "You can make money but you're going to have to work. You won't find someone else to do it for you."
And advice for anyone contemplating acquiring the Four Aces?
"Keep the chicken. We do 2,800 pieces a week."
Source: The Montana Tavern Times, November, 2008, published monthly by Continental Communications, 125 W. Granite St., Suite 102, Butte, MT 59701.