Let Your Chicken Strip

Let Your Chicken Strip

What’s Great about Rural America

Her name is….well I can’t tell you.

Why? She asked me not to.

We’ll call her Joyce.

She doesn’t trust the internet.

We went to the Two_Bit-Saloon in Whitehall, Montana.

We’ve been there before.

It’s a former hardcore biker bar that still loves the bikers but cleaned things up and upgraded the food so families and people like us (whatever that means) will come in.

The first time we went to the “Two Bit” we almost didn’t walk in the door.

From the outside it looks a little sketchy.

But once you bravely open the door you realize this is a clean, well done spot.

New owners upgraded the place.

The food is fresh, local and really amazing.

They hand-make almost everything.

Bread is a speciality as are the fresh made potato chips, hamburgers but for us it’s the hand battered, buttermilk dipped chicken strips that we go for.

Nothing here is greasy and the oil used to cook stuff is clean. You know that smell of dirty grease? You won’t find it at the Two Bit.

But what you will find is “Joyce.”

“Joyce” has worked a long time at the bar.

That woman can read people like a gypsy.

She had me pegged from the moment I walked in the door and started flipping me crap.

She picked up on Kathy’s sweetness and her mismatched husband who needed to be put in his place, and she did.

She was relentless telling me she wouldn’t wait on me only my wife.

For me, I’m in love now.

If you are brave enough to give me shit at a restaurant we’re instantly friends.

Everyone at the “Two-Bit” gives you their Two Cents.

They know the reason people go out to eat, at least one of the reasons is, to have a good time.

“Joyce” and her co-workers, is what I love about rural Montana, rural Oregon, rural America.

Those folks with a hard edge but a heart bigger than the small town they live in are what make our country great.

Not all Dive Bars have a “Joyce” but the Two-Bit has her and a bunch of other smart-ass waitresses that make the excellent food that much better.

I hope the snotty food scene in places like Missoula or Portland never figures out what “Joyce” and the girls know.

Food has to be fresh, homemade (even the dressings) and plentiful.

But what makes the place work is service and I don’t mean filling your diet Pepsi three times.

It’s taking the time to read your customer and play with them.

Rural America will do that.

Uptight Portland can fake it but something gets lost in the delivery.

If you’re ever driving along I -90 between Butte and Three Forks, turn off at Whitehall and go let the chicken… strip.

Go ahead and let your rough side out.

But beware, these girls will take you down and you’ll thank them as you walk out the door.