Yesterday's Calf-A

Yesterday's Calf-A

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Information Yesterday's Calf-A Box 82 Dell, Montana 59724 406/276-3319

Dell, Montana

THE ROMAN STATESMAN AND ORator Cicero said, "One should eat to live, not live to eat." That's probably because he didn't have a good cook, wasn’t a touring rider and had never been to Yesterday's Calf-A in Dell, Montana.

Located off I-15 on Monida Pass, which crosses the Montana-Idaho border, the Calf-A offers much more than home-cooked family-style meals at l960s prices. It also offers an ambiance that is the happy combination of a one-room schoolhouse and the landscaping of a rural junkyard. There’s a good reason for this: Owner Ken Berthelson, a collector of old-time farm machinery, tools and other antiques, set out to buy the bell on the old Dell schoolhouse. and got the whole building for the price of the bell. His wife, Ruth, knew a good thing when she saw it, and started a restaurant

in the schoolhouse building. Her efforts have been so successful that the Calf-A is now the largest employer in Dell, which has a population of 35 souls.

Inside, you'll find the menu on the blackboard, and vintage textbooks and storybooks all around. Seating is at large tables with whoever happens to show up. Folks are friendly in Dell and you always meet someone new. If you're really lucky, someone might play familiar old tunes on the piano as you make your way through heaping mounds of food. All in all, a pretty good place to stop, especially if your motto is anything like “One should ride to eat and live to ride.”

Jane Smilie