New watering hole downtown: Red's Roost

Tucked away in the KM Building like a well-kept secret is Kalispell's newest sports bar, Red's Roost.

The bar opened just in time for the first Montana Grizzlies game on Sept. 5. It's one of Bill Goodman's many plans to come to fruition in the building he purchased in 1998.

"My goal here is to be an everyday type of place, not where people come on special occasions," Goodman said. "It's where we have a large pool of regulars. We're not after the tourists."

The bar occupies what was once the loading dock of the Kalispell Mercantile on First Avenue East. Fourteen feet up, old rafters are exposed. Sunlight shines through high windows and through the great metal and wood sliding doors that once opened to wagons and then trucks. Hidden away behind another set of sliding doors is a massive centenarian freight elevator that only recently lifted its final load.

"We tried to keep it industrial," Goodman said, adding that the renovation took six months. "Parts of the [KM] Building are fancy. This was the loading dock and receiving room. We restored the old as much as possible."

Most of the wood floor is original, buffed to a high shine but still scuffed by numberless feet. Sticking to theme, Goodman installed a corrugated metal bar.

But any resemblance to a place of sweat, dust and work ends there. High tables sprinkle the room. A number of high definition televisions dot the walls. A distinct Bostonian feeling pervades the establishment; one can almost hear the roar of fans perched high in the Green Monster down the street. Two large ventilators hang upside down from the ceiling by the bar- "what is its" as Goodman calls them, curiosities uncovered in the cavernous warehouse space on the second floor.

"It's kind of different from most sports bars because it's bright and cheery," Goodman said. "We started talking to our customers about what they wanted. We wanted a different flavor that we didn't have at Red's Wines and Blues. "

At the Roost, the pool games are free and video games are tucked away in one corner. Goodman built a large covered patio beyond the sliding doors that he plans to heat in the winter so his clients who smoke have somewhere out of the wind and snow.

Goodman hopes the bar offers a friendly atmosphere to watch sports and enjoy meals. The bar opens at 11 a.m. and the kitchen, shared by Red's Wines and Blues, offers a salad bar, soup, pizza, and "great fried pickles." Like Wines and Blues, the Roost is open until 2 a.m.

The Roost is one of the last spaces in the KM Building to be renovated. The main and second levels are occupied mostly by offices. There's a beautiful two-story room replete with balcony for receptions, auctions and parties. The warehouse on the second floor may remain the final unused space.

"It's a life job," Goodman said of renovating the building that has been a Kalispell fixture for more than 100 years. "I'll never finish it. I will always keep working on it. Oh, I've got plans, wonderful plans, no shortage of plans."

Standing in the large warehouse, a bit dim save for light filtering through the original stained-glass windows and the memory of festive brightness cast by the party and Christmas lights hung haphazardly from beams and posts, Goodman looks about the room. In piles throughout, ancient furniture silently endures a layer of dust.

"It's like archaeology," Goodman says of the treasures he's uncovered throughout the renovation.

He hasn't decided what to do with the open space yet. Should he turn it into more offices or perhaps a concert venue? No matter its final purpose, Goodman wants the building to remain a fixture of downtown Kalispell, an anchor of the community.

"I'm very downtown-oriented," Goodman said. "If your downtown dies, you're a suburb of nowhere. I believe in a very healthy core. It takes a community effort. It doesn't happen by accident."

Reporter K.J. Hascall may be reached at 758-4439 or by e-mail at kjhascall@dailyinterlake.com