By Rachel Hergett EBS COLUMNIST
The Rib & Chop House first opened in Livingston in 2001 and built a decades-long reputation for quality and service with a steakhouse menu that draws inspiration from the original owners’ Louisiana roots. Starters like chicken and sausage gumbo and boudin balls led into butter-seared steaks, glistening racks of barbecue ribs and cedar-plank salmon.
The Rib & Chop has shirked any need to give into fine dining trends and instead leaned into its own casual style that has become known as “Rocky Mountain Hospitality.” Friendly wait staff write their names seemingly upside down and backwards on paper table coverings so that the name is facing the diners. Crayons are placed on the table, so children—or adult children like me—can busy themselves drawing. And that paper covering serves as both canvas and tablecloth to catch drips from the butter-drenched steaks.
This is how I thought of the Rib & Chop. Then, as we all know, came the COVID-19 pandemic. Everything shifted. The hospitality industry was hit hard. Therein, the Rib & Chop was forced to pivot, to find new paths forward in an attempt to simply maintain the standards people came to expect from the restaurant.
Enter chief operating officer Corey Robbins, who was taken aback, but kindly fielded my probing questions at what was probably supposed to be a softball of a media event to introduce the chain’s new lunch menu at its Bozeman restaurant.
“We’re doing what we can, trying to treat staff right,” Robbins said. “We’ve had to up our pay scale annually, monthly, daily sometimes it feels like.”
And they’re making strides. With the opening of a Rib & Chop in Great Falls last fall, there are now 13 locations across Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Utah and Colorado. Another is in the works in North Platte, Nebraska.
Also part of what Robbins called a “refocus,” is the new lunch menu, which launched across all locations on Feb. 5.
“The Rib & Chop House culinary team has produced a menu that satisfies a broad range of appetites, focusing on classic steakhouse tastes and flavors, and how they could be influenced by our distinct Louisiana-inspired heritage,” the website states.
The lunch menu adds lighter options that are easily for the kitchen to execute. Gone is the precisely stacked avocado and shrimp tower, replaced with a bowl version that may not be as visually striking but gains from the new lemon vinaigrette. The dressing’s slight sweetness complements the lightly Cajun-spiced shrimp perfectly.
The Rib & Chop’s lunch menu is available weekdays from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and is designed to be quick for the work crowd to easily get in and out in an hour. But if you’re worried that it doesn’t include the fried green tomato appetizer or wedge salad, the full menu is always available.
At the luncheon, I was seated next to an old Bozeman High School friend and now owner of the Bozeman City Lifestyle magazine, Maggie Hebron. Together, we ordered much of the lunch menu. Standouts included the slightly spicy buffalo chicken sandwich and the decidedly smokey flavor of the roast beef on the French dip. I understood when many of the people at the table ordered the executive lunch, a baseball-cut sirloin steak that has remained on the menu for good reason. It’s cost-effective and deliciously juicy with the perfect crispy sear on the outside.
When it comes to menu planning, the Rib & Chop wants there to be what they refer to as “no veto vote,” something appealing to every palate so that no one vetoes the restaurant suggestion.
To that end, the new lunch menu is appealing. There are a variety of new salads, quick “handheld” or sandwich options, fish or shrimp tacos and a smaller version of the chicken marsala, with a sweet wine sauce that is a customer favorite.
Or it was, until “some guy who looks a lot like me took it off the menu,” Robbins joked. Now, it is back on the main menu as well as the new lunch menu.
While the Rib & Chop House has certainly experienced growing pains and pandemic uncertainty, it is still at its core the restaurant I remember. It feels like home.
“We’re all just family,” Robins said. “We’re just taking care of each other. That’s what we need to do.”
Rachel Hergett is a foodie and cook from Montana. She is arts editor emeritus at the Bozeman Daily Chronicle and has written for publications such as Food Network Magazine and Montana Quarterly. Rachel is also the host of the Magic Monday Show on KGLT-FM and teaches at Montana State University.
