Pine Creek is a small venue with a big impact
Pub Date: 8/1/2008
By Cole Boehler
Like a lot of Montana immigrants, Ned and Dan Shapiro simply fell in love with the Last Best Place during numerous family vacation trips out west from their Illinois home.
And now one could speculate the folks who live up and down the Paradise Valley between Yellowstone Park and Livingston think of the "Shapiro Boys" as they are affectionately known in the area as true "locals."
The Shapiro odyssey began in the 1970s when David, a dentist, and Norma Shapiro would pack their seven kids aboard AmTrack in Amboy, Ill., to enjoy the splendors of their Big Sky Country destination, often a dude ranch. Eventually, the family bought a small spread near Mill Creek which drains an expanse of the magnificent Absaroka Mountains to the east.
But it took until 1990 for brother Ned to decide Montana was what he loved and where he wanted to live. He gave up a good job at the Board of Trade in Chicago, moved to the family place on Mill Creek and began working as a waiter, then as maitre'd at the Chico Hot Springs fine dining restaurant where he would stay for the next 12 years.
Brother Dan made the move about the same time and also began learning the commercial foodservice ropes working as a waiter, then in the Chico kitchen for almost 10 years.
The bothers had been eyeing potential business opportunities in the area when in August of 2001, a small cafe and lodge about 12 miles south of Livingston became available. With owner financing, the brothers acquired the compact restaurant, store and handful of guest cabins at Pine Creek. They continued working part time at Chico while they labored to ramp up their new business.
The day before the interview with Ned and Dan, this reporter was on his way to the Gaming Industry Association convention at Chico. I thought I'd stop at Pine Creek to see if the brothers would be available to talk the next day.
As I pulled off the East River Road at Pine Creek, I spied Ned walking along the shoulder of the road with a chain saw and gas can in hand. I thought: that epitomizes ownership of a small business in Montana truly hands-on labor, whether cutting firewood for the big wood stove inside, or clearing brush and small trees from the surrounding property.
Incidentally, I believe I may have met Ned and Dan once when they were mere youths about 25 years ago. My oldest brother who has played in Valley bands for years, once rented a guest cabin on the Shapiro home place on Mill Creek and was married there in 1982. I recall meeting Norma, possibly David, and certainly some of the kids.
For the brothers, the first order of business after the acquisition was to expand the kitchen. Dan says with a laugh, "It only had room for one to work'; now two, maybe three can work in there."
Thank goodness brother Dan has an affinity for carpentry, having rebuilt an old barn on the family place into a guest house. He has been responsible for the upgrades to the kitchen and some further development of the structure and the one-acre of grounds.
"I really like working with wood," says Dan, who is also a respected photographer and snowboard enthusiast. "I like turning a pile of sticks into a creation," he says.
"In this business, you learn to be a carpenter, roofer, electrician, plumber," Ned says.
An outdoor eating deck has been added and now an entertainment stage (which will be discussed later) has been erected out back in the grassy area between the cafe and the five guest cabins. (Oops, that's now four guest cabins as an errant pickup truck last New Years missed a curve and eliminated the one closest to the roadway, one I have stayed in on several occasions'; and no, no one was hurt.)
The most significant limitation to the operation's potential is a lack of space for parking, but a rancher neighbor has agreed to lease some pasture to augment parking space, especially since local authorities have recently been inclined to crack down on drivers parking along the roadway (and more on that later, too).
"I think (the neighbor) just respects that we are struggling to run a small business," Ned says.
The establishment features two dining rooms with a small beer and wine bar between and a kitchen in back. It will seat up to 50. While the cafe features breakfast, lunch and dinner every day (excepting lunch on Saturday and Sunday), it is closed Monday and Tuesday during the slack winter months.
"The first winter was very slow," Ned recalls. "We did one fifth the business we did in the summer." That imbalance has improved somewhat as Ned now reports the winter season accounts for perhaps one-third of the annual trade, indicating increasing patronage from locals. Ned says the business is now operating at the facility's capacity in summer months'; reservations are definitely in order.
The Shapiro brothers staff the place with 17 employees, just three of them full-time, and that includes owners Dan and Ned. The balance are local artists, housewives or residents and such who only want part-time work.
"We are very fortunate to have excellent, interesting, hard working people who are also just neat individuals," says Ned.
Dan does most of the cooking. He says he learned to be creative "what works and what doesn't " when he was put in charge of cooking the employee meal for 30 Chico staff using primarily leftovers.
Dan says the menu and dishes evolve over time. "After we introduce an item, we keep re-working it and it improves over the next two to three weeks. I know what I want but sometimes not how to get there.
"we've had failures," Dan continues. "The vegetarian dish took a long time to catch on. People either loved it or hated it. But now we have people who come here just for that." A lot of what determines success or failure has to do with "word of mouth," he says.
While the Pine Creek Cafe menu is not extensive, it is surprisingly diverse and unique, a requisite in the ultra competitive restaurant market of Livingston and the Paradise Valley.
Breakfast, for example, features a spinach Florentine (toasted ciabatta bread topped with andouville sausage, two poached eggs, hollandaise sauce and cayenne pepper) for $10.
A diner will find fairly traditional sandwich fare on the lunch menu, all served with chips and priced at a flat eight bucks. Soups and salads are available, too.
Things get a bit more exotic at dinner time. Besides soups, salads and appetizers, you can experience elk sausage pasta, Montana whitefish, spicy teriyaki salmon, Louisiana gumbo, or coconut and citrus vinaigrette pasta primavera, all priced between $11.75 and $13.75
In the more traditional line is a New York strip streak with fixin's (this is beef country, after all) at $19.95, Asian style ribs (half rack - $14.95, full rack - $26.95), burgers and even tacos including a rainbow trout taco. They list as "old favorites" cinnamon grilled chicken fajitas, spicy scallop tacos and buffalo sloppy joe, all notched at $13.75.
"We wanted to keep it good, affordable but not real high-end'; simple," says Ned.
This writer can personally attest the food is very good, but don't expect ultra fast service. However, in this beautiful, rural, Montana valley setting, slowing things down a bit is appropriate.
Food represents about 65 percent of the enterprise income, says Ned, with adult beverage accounting for 15 percent and cabin rentals the balance. Incidentally, the cabins are quite rustic (no TV) but very comfortable.
Okay, so what we have here is a funky little wayside cafe with beer and wine service and a few cabins sitting at the foot of the Absaroka Mountains not far from the Yellowstone River, in a valley that is seeing the unfortunate and ubiquitous transformation from good ranches to McMansions and subdivisions.
Well, not quite.
That's because the Shapiro Boys have been working hard to make the little lodge an entertainment destination. And this with a facility whose main dining room (transformed to dance hall at night) might seat 30 folks. A five-piece band takes up a quarter of the floor.
But somehow they are pulling it off, even in the slow winter months when the usual summertime Yellowstone Park tourists are long gone.
Pine Creek features live music weekly, usually with a solo performer on Friday night and a full band on Saturday. Dan says they are developing a Thursday night bluegrass jam session. During the week you might find Yellowstone Park Naturalists lecturing, talks on Native American culture or authors reading poetry or literature.
You might even find Christy The Wordsmith, the nationally known host of the Public Radio show of the same name, although in this setting, the always prim and proper Christy might let the usual inhibitions slip and perform one of her "Bad Word Wednesday" soliloquies which invariably packs the house, Dan says.
But It's really about the music.
Paradise Valley has long been home to musicians of world-class talent as well as many home-grown folks who can more than hold their own on any instrument. There are at least a half dozen bands of high caliber right in the valley, but if you add in the Bozeman music scene from just over the Pass, a host establishment has a quite extraordinary musical smorgasbord to choose from.
Blues, rock, country, folk, blue grass you'll find it all at Pine Creek.
Especially during the summer when traffic volumes are up and the "livin' is easy" will you find bands on the outdoor stage. Then Pine Creek serves up barbecue fare on an outdoor grill while selling keg beer by the cup.
In fact, the bands so like playing Pine Creek and, by extension, playing for the Shapiro Boys that several of them get together and play an all-day gig for free once a summer for the benefit of the Pine Creek Cafe.
Now that must be unprecedented that bands, who often have more of a hate than love relationship with tavern operators, should haul, set up, play for hours, then tear down and haul back their gear, all for free...for the benefit of the business that hires them!
The Shapiro Boys are onto something here.
"We're good friends of the local musicians," says Ned, with Dan adding that he also plays some guitar. "They treat us well."
Both confess to being music lovers. In fact, Dan had just returned from a Posies concert in Seattle the night before the interview. And Ned has gained some local fame as an extraordinary free-form dancer. (This writer once photographed Ned in the midst of a Grateful Dead dance frenzy with both feet simultaneously well off the ground).
"We get a very eclectic crowd'; a great mix of people," says Ned. This means local ranch folk young and old (many sporting Stetsons), aging hippies, retired railroaders, professionals, college students, bikers, artists...whatever. And they all dance. It is unquestionably a true family venue where the kids can play in the creek that runs through the property while their elders dance, eat and drink.
This writer has enjoyed music indoors and outdoors at Pine Creek on numerous occasions and will vouch for It's quality. One regular band, The Fossils ("authentic hippie rock"), draws consistently capacity crowds and features two of the best guitar players (Lib Caldwell and Jerry Mullen) in the state, maybe the region'; heck, maybe even... You get the picture. What a musical treat when these two trade licks and flash their chops! (As a point of disclosure, this writer's brother is featured on harmonica and shares vocal duties in this band, and he's no slouch either).
Dan says marketing a small, rural and unconventional establishment can be tricky, especially on "a lean budget."
"We try to take advantage of free media (the area abounds with arts and entertainment publications and media). We send them stories and pictures (about coming acts) regularly. It is as big a part of our marketing as paid media.
"We also like to work with local charities," Dan says. "Big Brothers/Sisters, that kind of thing. We get a lot of good publicity out of that. We also underwrite a blues show on (local MSU student radio) KGLT. And we will put up posters. We're not using the internet enough yet but are developing a web site."
The brothers say they are content with their current enterprise but would like to continue to develop it, especially the winter traffic.
They also note they are shifting as far as possible toward using locally produced, organic commodities such as beef and vegetables.
"We're trying to be good environmental stewards," Ned says, using biodegradable ware for outdoor events and recycling as much of everything else as possible.
And they're trying to be good neighbors, too...even after having been charged by the county attorney via citizen complaint with maintaining a public nuisance (see sidebar article below).
That, for the Shapiro brothers, is just one more of the many challenges being faced every day by Montana small hospitality business owners. But these two don't give up easily, as evidenced by their pleading innocent and asking for a trial.
Clearly they are fighters and, so far, they appear to be winning their battles and maybe even the war that will ultimately determine the relative success of their venture all in the true entrepreneurial spirit.
Source: The Montana Tavern Times, August, 2008, published monthly by Continental Communications, 125 W. Granite St., Suite 102, Butte, MT 59701.