Missoula · Eat
The Oxford Cafe
24-hour downtown Missoula cafe and saloon on Higgins since 1883, known for Ox burgers and chicken fried steak.
Open all night, all year, long enough that the doors famously have no keys. The Ox is a Missoula constant.
This place is still going.
The Oxford sits on the corner of Higgins and Pine and does not pretend to be anything else. Their own site says the saloon and cafe were established in 1883 and stay open 24 hours a day, every day of the year. Locals shortened the name to the Ox a long time ago.
The menu is the kind people measure a night by: half-pound Ox burgers, rib-eye dinners, and chicken fried steak with JJ’s special gravy. The cafe says it has served more than 200,000 orders of that chicken fried steak since the gravy hit the menu in 1986. Gaming machines run seven days a week. The room fills with whoever is still awake in Missoula: people getting off work, people finishing a night, people who just want coffee at 3 a.m.
What keeps it on this list is the ordinary continuity. It is still open when a lot of downtown has locked up. If you are nearby, stop in and keep them busy. Remember this place? Tell us what you remember.
- Address
- 337 N. Higgins Ave., Missoula, MT 59802
- Town
- Missoula
- Region
- Western Montana
- Established
- 1883
- Phone
- 406-549-0117
Remember this place? Tell us what you remember.
Know this place? Send a correction.
What do you say?
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Still Old School: The Oxford Cafe in Missoula
Established in 1883, open 24 hours, still pouring coffee and plating chicken fried steak when downtown locks up.
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Higgins Bridge, a university town that still felt like a town, and Friday plans that did not need a group chat.
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