Barbecue restaurant reopening

Famous Dave’s is smoking again — but this time it’s to prepare to reopen.

On Wednesday a crew of 41 workers will be back at the grill and dining tables and doors, greeting hungry barbecue fans for the first time in more than seven weeks.

The popular north Kalispell restaurant is fully recovered from its March 13 fire that took out the kitchen and damaged a substantial portion of the dining area.

“We got our health inspection today,” General Manager Michael Schindler said Monday. “We got an A on it … So we’re just continuing to smoke the rest of today. It takes time to marinate and thaw and smoke” before the restaurant can fill customers’ plates with ribs and brisket when the doors open at 10:45 a.m. Wednesday.

“We’ll do everything in big quantities because we know it will be a big day,” he said.

Schindler said the restaurant’s certificate of occupancy came through on Friday, allowing access to the building so workers could haul food into the coolers.

By Monday, they were poised to fire up the smokers as soon as they got the green light from the health department.

Once that smoking and cooking started, Schindler didn’t plan to have it stop until the last customer is served on Wednesday night.

Throughout the cleanup process, Famous Dave’s 70-person crew was at the ready to pitch in whenever needed, hauling out spoiled food and sweeping away debris and polishing up the place. Longtime workers received their full wages throughout the process thanks to insurance coverage, Schindler said, and newer workers received unemployment benefits.

As far as Schindler is concerned, Wednesday is a day to say thanks to the people who really got Famous Dave’s back in business — the Kalispell firefighters.

So he’s making it a fundraising day for the Fire Department, allowing customers to add a contribution to their tabs at check-out or toss in a donation outright.

The collection will go to the Kalispell Firefighters Association Local 547 benevolence fund.

Firefighters union spokesman Rob Cherot said the fund goes for the town’s annual cancer walk, Red Ribbon Week in the schools, the national MDA Association, youth ball teams, Christmas support for local families and the like.

Firefighters will be on hand through the lunch and dinner hours Wednesday. They will bring along a fire truck and park it in the lot outside Famous Dave’s for children — and adventurous adults — to explore.

Schindler is just glad to be back in the game.

Customers will find the same Famous Dave’s they know and love, invisibly tweaked with a few operational improvements to help things run smoothly.

Early estimates put the fire’s damage at $250,000, but Schindler said he had no idea where the actual cost finally landed.

The insurance “replaced whatever was damaged and now we go on,” he said.

“I just want to thank the Kalispell Fire Department,” he added. “Basically they gave us the restaurant back.”

Reporter Nancy Kimball can be reached at 758-4483 or by e-mail at nkimball@dailyinterlake.com