You're Old School Montana if... you've seen old chaps with a Main Street saddle shop's name stamped right into the leather
Old School Montana
Some of it’s still here.
A home for everything that made you a Montanan: the stories your dad told twice, the bar that’s been there since statehood, the way we wave from the truck. Go eat there, drink there, tell us what you remember. Help keep what makes Montana, Montana.
Newest
You're Old School Montana if...
You're Old School Montana if... you watched the Mustangs from the old wooden stands at Cobb Field and felt every board
You're Old School Montana if... the bar in your little town was also the town hall, the cafe, and the message board
You're Old School Montana if... you went to Rimrock Mall on Saturday because that's where everybody was
Montana stories
Back Then
The stuff people still bring up.
Back Then · Remember This?
Remember This? Pekin Noodle Parlor in Butte
Since 1911, the best seats in Uptown Butte were up a flight of stairs. Pekin Noodle Parlor, often called the country's oldest family-owned Chinese restaurant, served its last noodles in April 2026.
Back Then · Remember This?
Remember This? Big Mountain Before It Was Whitefish Mountain Resort
Whitefish's ski hill opened in December 1947 and spent sixty years as Big Mountain before the 2007 rename. Plenty of people never got the memo.
Back Then · Remember This?
Remember This? The Merc and The Bon in Downtown Missoula
The Missoula Mercantile sold wagons, groceries and furniture, then became The Bon, then Macy's. The lights went out in 2010. Somehow the old pharmacy corner made it.
Back Then · Remember This?
Remember This? The Busy Bee in Roundup
Eighty years of home cooking in Roundup, 56 of them with Mark and Mary Ann Petrie in charge. FEMA said the building had to go. Somebody saved the horse.
Find It
Still Old School
Not the highest-rated anything. The places that still feel like Montana.
Drink
Bale of Hay Saloon
Square hewn log walls out front, a tin ceiling that came out of the Mint Saloon in Great Falls, and a name borrowed from the livery stable next door. They'll tell you it's the oldest bar in Montana.
Drink
Beer Jug
The Merrill Avenue bar Glendive has leaned on since the mid-1940s. Swiss brat, lunch plates, and a comeback after the 2018 fire.
Eat
Bernice's Bakery
Scratch baking on South 3rd since 1978, and the lights are on at 6 a.m. Missy Kelleher is the fourth woman to own it.
Shop
Bitterroot Drug
Five sets of owners in more than a century. It still fills prescriptions, and there's still candy and souvenirs up front, the way a drugstore ought to be.
Keep It Going
Montana Originals
Some places have just been here. The badge is an editor's call, not a receipt.
Eat · Montana Original
Borrie's
Four generations on Smelter Avenue. Decades-old recipes for the sauce, soup and dressing, and thousands of ravioli rolled by hand every week.
Support local
Still here is the whole idea.
Remembering a place is nice. Showing up is what keeps it open.
Remember It
Montana by Decade
Not generations. The years people actually mean.
From the Shoebox
Pictures somebody kept.
Coming soon. Got an old photo? Send it in.