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For Sale: The Only Bar in a 14-Person Montana Town

atlasobscura.com

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Re: For Sale: The Only Bar in a 14-Person Montana Town

#71

Post by prawn »

mcherm wrote: post #57
kempbellt wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having lived in Montana for 2 years myself, I don't consider Forsyth a town worth noting. Billings is the closest town that has a decent population, and it's 110 miles away by car. Brick or wood (fixed my original comment for ya), my point was it's a simple building in a tiny "town". It's not worth the money as a business purchase, but would be a pleasure buy. Not sure why my comment needed to be pedantically torn ap…

Because IF you are going to be sarcastically dismissive you ought to at least get the details right.

I don't think the details are critical to their point though. The fact that it's a brick building with backstory doesn't immediately turn it into a sound business decision.

Re: For Sale: The Only Bar in a 14-Person Montana Town

#72

Post by rhacker »

MS90 wrote: post #23
CharlesColeman wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Spending a quarter million dollars on a four wood walls and a door in a podunk Montana town that is about a 100 mile drive to the nearest town From the OP: > The Jersey Lilly was the town’s first brick building , built in 1914 as the first bank of a very different Ingomar. > The nearest town, Forsyth, is “only” 44 miles away . “That’s really close in Montana, trust me.” If you want to write a dismissive comment, go…

I mean, he's got a point. Forsyth has less than 2000 people in it. As someone who used to live in Montana, the nearest town worth mentioning is Billings which is 111 miles away, and the nearest town worth really going to is Missoula which is 371 miles.

Boseman

Re: For Sale: The Only Bar in a 14-Person Montana Town

#73

Post by mitchty »

at-fates-hands wrote: post #44
planteen wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right this minute you could find very fast internet (fiber) in rural areas with very inexpensive housing. I have a relatives in the Dakotas & Nebraska with better internet than I have in Denver. Some of them live in town and some of them live in the country. A lot of it seems to depend on local government having the drive to get rural access funds from the FCC. As another said, eastern Montana could be brutal if its…

> It will be really windy and really brown (its very dry) for much of the year. Remember playing soccer with a guy from Montana. We were playing on a field in the Fall that was basically all dead, yellow grass. He used to say. "Dude, I'm from Montana, this is considered LUSH"

> "Dude, I'm from Montana, this is considered LUSH"

Good old prarie grass, green after it rains in June. Don't put a flame near or you'll start a wild fire brown the rest of the summer.

Re: For Sale: The Only Bar in a 14-Person Montana Town

#74

Post by DubiousPusher »

pgrote wrote: post #47

I've always wondered about the data missing in Google Maps. For instance, when you go to Ingomar, MT and look at street view, the car got to the entrance of the town and the data just stops. https://goo.gl/maps/WVTAChPsBUiRjnoX9 Did the camera die? Did the car get a flat? Did someone forget to turn something on?

A weird thing about the of rural Montana that I grew up in is that Google maps has names of places that no one there uses and then they don't have names that are popularly known.

Re: For Sale: The Only Bar in a 14-Person Montana Town

#75

Post by DubiousPusher »

micro_cam wrote: post #37
ewhanley wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Montana, you're paying for the liquor license. It's not uncommon to see hole-in-the-wall bars in 2000 person towns go for $1 million. They are quota-ed and similar to the NYC taxi medallion system.

This is correct. On the other hand since tasting rooms can operate without a liquor license it creates a real advantage for small brewereries etc. My town of 5000 has two mircobreweries, a distillery and a cidery and Montana ranks second (IIRC) in breweries per capata. Plus all the really cool bars are out in the middle of the mountains nowhere near a town.

True story. I was born in Ennis, population single digits thousands. They have a brewery and distillery.

Re: For Sale: The Only Bar in a 14-Person Montana Town

#76

Post by wanderer2323 »

"Behind one end of the bar sits Jefferson Peters, octopus, with a sixshooter on each side of him, ready to make change or corpses as the case may be. There are three bartenders; and on the wall is a ten foot sign reading: 'All Drinks One Dollar.' Andy sits on the safe in his neat blue suit and gold-banded cigar, on the lookout for emergencies. The town marshal is there with two deputies to keep order, having been promised free drinks by the trust.

"Well, sir, it took Bird City just ten minutes to realize that it was in a cage. We expected trouble; but there wasn't any. The citizens saw that we had 'em. The nearest railroad was thirty miles away; and it would be two weeks at least before the river would be fordable. So they began to cuss, amiable, and throw down dollars on the bar till it sounded like a selection on the xylophone.

(The Octopus Marooned by O. Henry)

Re: For Sale: The Only Bar in a 14-Person Montana Town

#77

Post by DubiousPusher »

For real, buying this kind of business in Montana is extremely risky. I lived for many years in an area that's very popular with tourist/sportsmen including quite a few famous Hollywood types. There are many lakes with lodges around there. My family got to know many people who would by a place like that and it ruined many of their lives. Divorces, bankruptcies, the whole gamut. It's very hard.

Re: For Sale: The Only Bar in a 14-Person Montana Town

#79

Post by owenversteeg »

floren wrote: post #9
stevehawk wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I gotta assume in this case you're more paying for the history.. can't imagine there's as lot of business with 13 residents and nearest city being 45 minutes away.

It sounds like they do fine; only beer in 100 miles is a pretty good business proposition. They also go through 1200 pounds of pinto beans a year, so somebody's buying food there.

1200 lbs a year, assuming a half pound per serving, is only 2400 servings a year, or about six a day. I can't imagine six bowls of beans does much to pay the bills even in rural Montana.
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