When I was a kid Trixie herself was still there - lots of great memorabilia on the walls

I was born back east but when I was one, we moved to Missoula because my dad wanted to be a mountain man, or a horse packer at least. This was in the 70's and I still love seeing the old 8mm movies of us helping him trim the poles for the tepee he bought and set up in our yard. Eventually we rented an old log house on a friends ranch up the Blackfoot, "The Glore Place" about ten miles outside the nearest town (which I'm not supposed to disclose yet I guess). The house sat next to a spring fed pond and the spring was handy in the summer for keeping pop and beer cold. My sister and I were sent down many hot afternoon to fetch a can or two of Oly. But when the mountain meadows grew too rural we headed into town to Trixie's Antique Antler Saloon, which was actually on the highway. At the age of 6 and 8, my sister and I had little interest in beer or cocktails but the pool table beckoned as did the pinball machine. I loved eating pizza or corndogs, or pizza and corndogs, while sitting atop the metal tractor seat stools at the bar, slurping rootbeer, and admiring the mountain diarama behind up against the mirror and rail bottles. Left to run free we played pool or ran around outside till all hours of the night (probably like 8pm at that age) and generally had freedom to roam. We'd find glass bottles outside and throw rocks down the hillside.
We moved away eventually but I've since returned to Montana and paid a visit or two to Trixies. It seems much smaller now but the magic is still there. That old red building that used to belong to a madam still beckons on hot summer days with the dream of cold beer and the freedom of childhood.

This is a great place to play pool. The food is awesome, the scenery on the drive is spectacular, the atmosphere is authentic Western, the service is down home. I first stopped at Trixies after finishing a week long hiking and floating trip into the Bob Marshall. After the trip we had to return to the Monture access to retrieve our vehicles. Trixies was a great meal to finish off our amazing trip. Now we make it a lunch stop whenever we drive through this area.