On Our Way to the Owl Cafe

If you take a left off the first Laurel exit on I90 you will go right by the Big Sky Nursery and Green House.

Be sure to stop as they are full of flowers and seem quite reasonable too. The help is very nice and helpful as well. 

Remember those red wagons we used to drive around making thrumming noises pretending they had motors? Well, apparently there still a few left and the Big Sky Nursery makes good use of them. We picked up some stunningly red geraniums and some more modest coleus. This is a place worth going back to. 

I thought they had an A&W Root Beer stand on the way in to Laurel from the interstate but I couldn't find it. Tempus fugit.

Laurel is known as a railroad town, the place where you turn to go to Red Lodge, last year their Legion baseball team won the state championship, and they have some decent restaurants too. What more could you ask? We were looking for a restaurant known for being a good steak place but we noticed The Owl Cafe first as we were driving down Main St.

This was a nice, large, well-lit place with some stools at the counter but mainly a bunch of tables of various sizes. The waitress was very pleasant and we thought the menu was really well done, noting carefully where the meat had come from and what the cattle and bison ate. See some of it below.

They had some smaller and fancier dishes calculated to appeal to your date and some really nice salmon chowder. The customers, even the early shift, seemed fairly diverse and they all knew each other, so this must be a place popular with the locals.

While we were heading out I noticed a chalked invitation to some kuchen, a lovely German type of cake. We found out they made it in Bridger at a place called, naturally enough, The KuchenHaus. We took some home and made a note to check out that bakery in Bridger the next time we are through there.

If I had to pick out one thing that has really changed in the 30 years we've been living in Billings it would be the surprising number of good restaurants that have opened their doors, and of course, a few that have closed their doors too.