The Corvallis Tavern by Alisia Muhlestein
On first glance, the Corvallis Tavern is a typical small-town bar that could be anywhere in Montana. Outside, pick-up trucks line the parking lot. Inside, rough men with mustaches and cowboy hats drink heavily while watching whatever sport comes on the TV. But the Corvallis Tavern is more than that.
First of all, the bartenders are all women––tough women––and they are all related. Each shift, a mother/daughter team takes drink orders, fries frozen food and gossips with the regulars. While much of the gossip seems quaint (“Can you believe so-and-so is here without his wife?”) if you pay close attention you will see the depth to what is discussed under the blue-red lights of the Corvallis Tavern.
“We hear everything here,” said Melissa, one of the daughter bartenders. “This is like city center: everyone who’s anyone comes here.” One such group is a collection of local women. Their mission is to help anyone in Corvallis in need.
A few months ago the group helped a family when the father was diagnosed with a serious disease, putting his family was under immense financial burden. “We held a fundraiser to make sure they could pay their bills,” one of the members of the group said. “No one is alone in Corvallis. We are all like family.”
This sentiment is evident throughout the Tavern. Almost everyone has some connection to everyone else: mothers and daughters, cousins, father of someone’s best friend in grade school.
Some might think this closeness would be smothering, but the patrons of the Tavern seem to enjoy the intimacy. Why else would a group of “old timers” come every morning at 10 a.m. to play cribbage? The senior men drink only bitter black coffee (at least until noon) while socializing, seemingly unaware of the pool tables scattered behind them, the shelves lined with hard alcohol or the slot machines stuffed away in a corner.
Shortly after the old timers deal the first hand, the sports fans slowly trickle in. “I like to watch the Griz games here, it’s more exciting when you can cheer with other people,” said Mike, one of the bar’s regulars. “I also have a bus that takes all the regulars of the CT to every Griz home game.”
Becoming a regular at the Corvallis Tavern is no easy task, however. It’s not simply a matter of having a drink there every night. You have to put in your time, pay your dues. There are even unofficial “sections” of the bar – the regulars sit in a corner toward the back of the bar, while those who have yet to prove themselves are relegated to the front, getting hit with cold drafts of icy night air each time the door opens.
And the door does open––frequently. Every night the Corvallis Tavern is part family get together, and part class reunion. The faces change only as often as the seating arrangements, but even on the coldest of nights, at the worst possibly placed table, the warmth of the parishioners never fades.
Just remember to sit at the front.