New Owners Seek to be Stewards of Polebridge’s Storied Northern Lights Saloon

It all started to click for Austin Wallis — one half of the new ownership duo at the Northern Lights Saloon in Polebridge — last summer somewhere around the end of June.

At the time, Wallis and her wife Katie Griffis were managing the business in what ended up being a prelude to their purchase of it this spring from former owner Heather Matthews. Positive feedback had been steadily trickling in, and it felt like the staff was trained up and hitting a rhythm. Spruce Alley Sally, a Missoula-based bluegrass band had arrived to play, and what followed was a huge weekend.

Those fateful days, overlaid with the sounds of the five-piece band and a healthy dose of mayhem, led Wallis to a moment of revelation and excitement.

“I was like, ‘Alright, we’re doing it. We are doing this,’” she said.

Now, as the height of summer up the North Fork arrives at Polebridge, Wallis and Griffis are excited to keep the good times rolling for locals, tourists, and everyone in-between as they hit their two-month ownership anniversary.

Wallis, an attorney, also has a background in catering, bartending and serving. Griffis, a massage therapist, similarly has a background in the service industry, and was a bartender for the previous owner, Matthews, for five seasons.

Polebridge is close to both of their hearts. Wallis said she had been obsessed with area going back to 2015, when she had been living in Bozeman and a friend invited her to visit and stay at a family cabin. Fast forward to 2020, and she and Griffis met for the first time at this same friend’s cabin, and eventually fell in love.

“I would say that’s the backstory. Both of us, separately as individuals loving the North Fork, loving the saloon, and then together in our relationship, this has always just been a central part,” Wallis said. “We love to visit, like everybody else in the valley. You come here and you realize how special it is, and what a fixture it is to the community.”

The longtime beating heart of the saloon is its main building, a homestead cabin that housed William and Jessie Adair, who opened up a neighboring mercantile business in 1914. The history of the place is part of its draw, and, something that locals value. Consequently Wallis said that she sees herself and Griffis as “stewards” of the business knowing that some day in the future they’ll continue the passing of the torch to new owners.

“We want to maintain its character and its vibe. It’s been establishing itself as a business since the 1970s. People come in and they tell stories of ‘Oh, I remember what it was like back then.’ And we love to hear that,” Wallis said.

There has been some dusting, cleaning, tidying and organizing, tasks that to some extent should be expected with a building of this vintage, but otherwise Wallis said they’ve barely made any changes to the interior, and didn’t really make any to the exterior. Minus, of course, planting and nurturing an array of flowers — peonies, delphinium, and more — in the garden beds that sit below the saloon’s front deck, and elsewhere on the grounds.

Keeping up the saloon’s live music offerings has been a priority for Wallis, who has brought back some returning performers, and sprinkled in some new ones. Local acts like Surf Bat, Dan Dubuque, and Brent Jameson have already come through, and others like Hot Dayum!, Billy Billie, The Gray Goo and 20 Grand are penciled in for dates later this summer. Wallis has also booked some Missoula-area bands, like the aforementioned Spruce Alley Sally, The Spills, and self-proclaimed “world’s penultimate ski-surf band” The Skurfs.

Mixed in with the music are some more offbeat forms of entertainment, like the Aug. 16 Haute Trash Fashion Show, which will feature haute couture designs made out of trash and recycled materials. It’s a sort of spiritual follow-up to the delightfully different String and Shadow Puppet Theatre show that made a stop at the saloon last summer. Wallis said the designers behind the clothing featured in the Haute Trash Fashion Show are highly skilled, and tend to create big, elaborate pieces. The free show will revolve around a runway that will be built off the main music stage.

“There’s gonna be a runway-style fashion show in the North Fork,” Wallis said, summing it up. There’s a chance it’s a first for the North Fork, but she said she wouldn’t put it past the creative local community to have done one sometime over the course of the area’s long history.

Wallis said it’s important to them to be there for the community, the members of which are critical to the business and contribute to its beloved character, and so they’ve also tried to put together some events with more of a community focus. To that end, a recurring North Fork Flea Market is part of the summer schedule, with the market taking place on the last Sunday of every month. The idea is to be true to the spirit of the classic flea market, and incorporate a mix of locals selling things they own and artisans selling things they’ve made.

The saloon menu has undergone some limited changes, with a focus on trying to streamline things for the kitchen. Diners can still order a burger, or a bison burger, or they can go a little more off the beaten path with options like Cubano or gyro sandwiches, or a “Rainbow Bowl” with roasted yams, black beans, salad greens, avocado, charred onion, toasted pecans, quinoa and garlic-cilantro sauce. The menu also features a pulled pork sandwich built around pulled pork made by Perfect Cuts butcher shop in Columbia Falls.

The starter portion of the menu includes an array of snacks that have been known to hit the spot for hikers, campers and assorted recreationists. Chips and salsa and quesadillas are available, as are whipped feta and pita bread, and a tinned fish plate with sardines, homemade pickles, cheddar and saltines.

Thursday nights are devoted to barbecue, which is made using an old restored smoker on the property that is loaded up on Wednesdays for the following day. A chef on the kitchen staff is originally from Asheville, North Carolina, and Wallis said he worked for a time as a barbecue pitmaster. Wallis said they’ve done brisket, smoked chicken wings, pulled chicken, and pork ribs, and that they hope barbecue night can keep catching on and become an event people start to seek out. There’s also an old fire pit on the property that was once used for whole pig roasts. Wallis has ambitions to bring back a pig roast in some form, but plans are still in the early stages.

Wallis said they’re also working on bringing homemade pies back to the menu, and the cocktail menu has also been updated and customized. She recommends the house margarita, the “Thirsty Beaver” made with mezcal, Aperol and lime, and the “Huckleberry Highball.”

The latter is made with Glacier Distilling’s Bearproof Huckleberry whisky, earl grey syrup, lemon juice and soda.

“It’s a super delicious, crushable, summer beverage,” Wallis said. As for the Thirsty Beaver, Wallis described it as a good entry point for those curious about drinking mezcal.

Beyond that food and drink guidance, Wallis also shared some thoughts on the best way to experience the North Fork. You have to go into Glacier National Park, and you’ve got to make it to Bowman Lake or Kintla, hike to Numa Lookout “if you’ve got the energy” for it, and take a drive along the North Fork and admire the river and surrounding nature. It’s also essential to get in the water in some form or another, whether that means jumping in a lake, or dipping into a river.

As for when the northern lights come on, a question that Wallis sometimes finds herself tasked with answering due to the name of the business and some confusion about the nature of coronal mass ejections and magnetic field collisions, she joked that it’s at 11:30 p.m.

For those interested in attending Polebridge’s famous Fourth of July parade, Griffis said that it starts at noon sharp, but it’s usually an hour late. Spotting the saloon’s float this year shouldn’t be too difficult, given that they’ve chosen to pay homage to the Adairs, and the legendary giant cabbages they used to grow.

“There’s four ladies coming up to visit, and I told them the only job they have is to build a giant cabbage,” Griffis said. That giant, paper mache cabbage will be escorted by staffers dressed up as a marching band armed with kazoos.

“It’s gonna be a spectacle,” Wallis said.

For those who want something a little more than kazoo music, the saloon has three days of music planned for the Fourth of July weekend. on July 4, Dan Dubuque and The Spills will play. On July 5, Moonshine Mountain will perform. And then on July 6, Bo Depéna will close out the weekend.

To keep up with summer happenings at the Northern Lights Saloon, or learn more about booking special events like weddings, or parties, check out https://www.thenorthernlightssaloon.com/. You can also follow them on Instagram at @northernlights_saloon.

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