Bob Powell is no stranger to a great meal in a great setting. It won't surprise you that he owns Montana Club and also the new club in Missoula—Tap Club, located on North Reserve where the old Perkins used to be.
It opened last October, exactly a year ago, after a long and tedious construction process that began right before Covid-19 rocked our world. Lighting fixtures were built overseas and everything came to a standstill, but Bob and his architect were committed to patience for the unique vision they had in mind.
“It was a brand new venture for us, top to bottom," said Bob. "We’ve been building Montana Clubs for the last ten years or so…the customers know what a Montana Club is when we show up in a city, and Tap Club was just brand new. Every single piece of Tap Club was new for us from the design to the potential menu to staffing and uniforms—all of that stuff that we had polished.”
They knew that Tap Club would be a different breed entirely. "We’d been thinking about a concept. The brewery concept is popular and from a personal standpoint we didn’t want to just do a brewery with a basic hamburger and French fries type of thing," said Bob. "We wanted it to be really special and really unique because Missoula is a competitive market.”
But there is one thing that remains the same from Montana Club: the quality of food. "In all of the projects that we’ve done, food is always at the forefront of what we do," said Bob. Sure, liquor, ice cold beer, and gaming are pieces of the puzzle but it's the food that is at the core of it all. "We really like to do an outstanding job on food that we make. Much like the Montana Club, pretty much everything on his Tap Club menu is hand done. We’re really trying to localize Tap Club.”
All summer, chef Shaun Mazur used farmers market produce and burgers and steaks from Heart Bar K Ranch, a small family ranch in the Frenchtown Valley. And the best part? His wife Mel, is a professional pastry chef. She bakes all of the Tap Club buns from scratch. “There’s really no comparison to a bun that’s baked in house," said Bob. "I couldn’t buy anything that would be remotely close to the freshness and the quality of what she’s baking out there every morning at 6 a.m.”
Bob refers to Tap Club as the last best thing that he’s done. “Our thing is food, sports, and music. Those are the things that people really like—quality food at a good value is a really important thing,” said Bob. “And we all know how people like their sports and we all know how people like music, and so our goal was to do a really great job on all three of those categories.”
Chef Shaun has creative liberty at the Tap Club kitchen and he’s currently working on classic artisan pizza. “We call ‘em Tap pies,” said Bob. There’s a pickle pie that is mind-blowing and a must-try menu item. And a brisket pie, too. “All of our meats are smoked in house,” added Bob. But what would the Tap Club be without its beer? With 37 beers on tap, Montana brewers are getting the attention they deserve all under one roof.
“The quality of beer that is being produced in Montana is second to none,” said Bob. “That’s been awesome—being able to support not only the Missoula brewers but the ones around the state.” And of course beer and great food pair perfectly with large televisions and a superb sound system, especially when football season has arrived. “What’s happening is people are really wanting to watch sports there, and we didn’t really build it as a sports bar per se, but it’s a great place to watch sports. We have the NFL package and it’s a great environment to eat quality food and watch your favorite sports.”
The Tap Club’s claim to fame is placed on value. What it provides, the people behind the scene, and the experience that can be had there are hard to beat. “Value is not always about how much you pay for your product. Value has to do with what’s the quality of the product? Did you get enough to eat? What kind of environment are you enjoying it in? What’s the service level? To me, that all makes what I consider to be a good value,” said Bob. “We’re not a brewery, we’re not a sports bar, we’re not a casino or a restaurant—we’re kind of the best of all of those things.”
"We really like to do an outstanding job on food that we make. Much like the Montana Club, pretty much everything on his Tap Club menu is hand done. We’re really trying to localize Tap Club.”
“The quality of beer that is being produced in Montana is second to none."