One thing we love doing after a long day in Glacier is stopping for dinner somewhere on the way home. Not only is it fun to eat out, everyone’s generally tired from hiking and soaking in the sun. On our latest expedition to the Park, we planned to go to a place called Gunsight Saloon in Columbia Falls. It’s (mostly) on the road home, and they have good food. Plus, they’re open until 10.
We headed out of the park around 8:30, but unfortunately we ran into road construction along Lake McDonald. We were stopped for about forty minutes– which we made the most of by climbing out of the car and down to the shoreline, where we skipped rocks and enjoyed the cool water for a while. But it meant we’d be arriving at the restaurant around 9:40, which is uncomfortably near closing time. We didn’t want to be “those people”, so we looked for other food options along our route. Not much was open.
Except… Packer’s Roost. It was listed as a bar and grill, their menu looked solid, and they were open until two in the morning or some other ridiculous hour. Oh, and it was literally right off the highway we’d be driving. Deal!
We pulled up and immediately realized it was more bar than grill. Biker bar, to be exact. It was dimly-lit and the crowd looked a bit… rough. We had young kids with us, but they were hungry (and grumpy) so we figured as long as no one insulted someone’s Harley we’d be fine. We sat down, flagged down the sole waitress (not an easy task), and placed our order.
Then we waited. Some bar patrons played the slot machines next to our table; one older woman explained how they worked to ten-year-old Sebastian as she pumped her Social Security income into the machine. We waited some more. People came and went. The bar was filling up. A few people sitting there were obviously drunk. We waited. Some guy was hitting on some woman, but she didn’t seem interested. More waiting.
We took a group selfie to pass the time.
Still waiting. There was only a single waitress, and a single cook, and I honestly believe they were doing their best. Generally speaking, I’d guess that a bunch of half-drunk people in a dive bar at 11pm don’t care much how long their food takes to make. We, on the other hand, were getting pretty frustrated. It had been almost an hour and a half when our plates were finally delivered.
The food was good, but lukewarm at best. I’m pretty sure it had been sitting on the counter for a good ten minutes before it was brought out to us. By that time, the younger kids weren’t even interested in eating; they just wanted to sleep.
We arrived back home well after midnight. We agreed it would’ve been better to just skip the bar, come home, and either eat a little bedtime snack or just forego food entirely and hit the hay. On the other hand, we were all joking about how we ended up in a biker bar at midnight eating barely-warm food. Good times.
On a side note, when I told the story to a friend of mine the next day, he was incredulous. “You brought your friends and their family to Packer’s Roost? At midnight?” I guess that’s not recommended. But we all survived and have a good story to tell. All’s well that ends well, I guess.