Fashionable Missoula restaurant survives and thrives: You will love the

It turned on the market could not have been a worse goal date for opening a brand new restaurant than March 20, 2020.

However that is the date Pangea Bar & Restaurant in Missoula had their calendar. A date that had been chosen beforehand, however turned out to be the one when our lives had been turned the wrong way up that very same month by COVID.

And despite the fact that Pangea, and Stave & Hope, had been in a position to open provisionally a couple of weeks later in Could, there was little fanfare and a path on what the house owners name “one of the troublesome and complicated instances within the enterprise world.”

Nonetheless, Pangea has prospered by the uphill battle and is lastly prepared so that you can have a good time with them throughout a long-delayed “Grand Opening.”

An amazing, home-grown concept

Scott Billadeau, Chad Morgan, and Griz Corridor-of-Famer Skyla Sisco had been decided to make use of their Missoula and Montana connections, and what they’d realized with the profitable “Liquid Planet” model. In 2019 Missoulian Kyle Riggs joined one of many solely “Superior Stage 3 Sommeliers in Wine and Spirits in Montana.”

But even with that expertise, these first referred to as for lots of creativity and survival instincts, particularly beginning a brand new model in an uphill combat to get prospects. The house owners inform me battles had been received, errors had been made, and classes had been realized.”

Now, the subsequent chapter

The Pangea Group is now prepared for the subsequent section, which can be robust, given the rash of restaurant closures over the previous 12 months. Nonetheless they “actually imagine it is time to transfer the ship ahead” and to “signify what Missoula deserves for the subsequent 20 years.”

So subsequent week, that Grand Opening is Thursday, November ninth. And a significant change with the addition of Chef Justin Ferguson, who turns into the brand new Director of Operations after a nationwide search. Ferguson has began profitable eating places in New York, Chicago, and New Orleans, doing all the things from “Michelin eating places to barbeque to Mexican.”

That brings a brand new menu and different adjustments. Pangea will likely be dropping lunch service on November fifth to coach employees and give attention to the long run, opening each day at 4 p.m. The favored Sunday brunch will return on November nineteenth at 10 a.m. Reservations will likely be really useful, however not required at their web site.

And that is not all. Keep in mind Purple Robin?

Whereas it is primarily been unhealthy information for Missoula’s restaurant scene this 12 months, the house owners have strong plans.

Pangea can even characteristic a full catering division with meals and cocktails. Moreover, and this can be probably the most thrilling information for “foodies”, they plan to open “a number of new” restaurant ideas in 2024, together with the previous Purple Robin Area at Southgate Mall, and within the Florence Constructing downtown.

Moreover, Liquid Planet is within the remaining phases of re-opening its new “Grill” location within the previous Denny’s restaurant which closed earlier this 12 months and must be open “in a couple of weeks.”