Missoula News

Column: Missoula's Dish

The Red Bird, and Servers of a Feather

By Danielle Lattuga, 11-01-07

Bird Food, by Danielle Lattuga.

I didn’t have a clue what to expect, walking down an alley in my new hometown. The lights above cast only a sepia tint, lending slight color to the black and white.  I would not have been surprised to see a gumshoe, hat pulled low over his face, lighting a cigarette as he leaned against the corner of the building.  Instead, I turned that corner and looked up at elegant, fluid writing over the entryway, announcing a softly lit restaurant with no windows, a mural on the wall within, and a smoky eggplant spread, replacing the butter on my bread. It was seven years ago and my first experience with the Red Bird restaurant.

I long for the return of the eggplant spread, but the experience has not left me, because the Red Bird has maintained many of the flavorful, ethereal qualities I remember from that first visit, yet the restaurant has continued to evolve and grow. 

Jim Tracey and his wife, Laura Waters, purchased the restaurant shortly after my inaugural visit, but Jim had been cooking in that kitchen since the Red Bird’s inception in 1996. Now, the pair has owned the place the majority of its life. 

Laura and I are just about the same age. She has been in the business since she was 16. I entered it at 17.  While she speaks about her restaurant life, her fingers gently tug on the pendant hanging on the chain around her neck.  She grins her broad grin, tilts her head and says, “It kinda gets into your soul,” and while I never chose the restaurant business intentionally, and clearly she has, I agree with her.  Entirely. 

How does a restaurant continue to thrive?  It appears that now more than ever, it’s all about innovation and wine.  For the Red Bird, that means expanding the nest. 

In the past, many a conversation about the Red Bird was peppered with phrases like “it’s a date restaurant . . . intimate meals . . . special occasions . . .” and it’s true.  I usually went there for a birthday dinner, a Valentine’s date, a night out with my closest girlfriends.  Laura will say it—her servers aren’t seeing multitudes of customers in a night, they see perhaps a handful of tables and that allows them to focus their personal attention on the details of the meal for just a few particular people.  The restaurant isn’t any different in that respect, except that now, there’s a wine bar and as a result, the Red Bird invites some additional descriptors.

One year ago, the Red Bird closed its doors for renovations.  One might call it a leap of faith, like the flight of a fledgling, closing your doors just before the holiday, with parties scheduled in a few short months, to virtually double your size, your staff and your menu.  But for Laura and Jim, it was a calculated move that yes, required faith, but also required confidence and every back up plan imaginable (none of which were executed). 

When they reopened, the entryway in the alley was gone, but the sort of speak-easy quality of entering the restaurant was not lost.  From Higgins Avenue, the only indication of its existence is a large iron birdcage, with a small sign enticingly visible through the bars. 

You enter the Florence building and hear your own footsteps echo on the buffed floor.  Before you pass the Two Sisters counter and catch a glimpse of the restaurant, your eyes may venture across the inlaid floor compass.  Follow it North.  And while the loungey reception area with its leather couches and chairs may seem inviting, it is not nearly as intriguing as the darker, red, iron and glass graced wine bar.

The restaurant is still tucked away, shrouded by a red curtain.  It still fosters the intimate upscale dining experience, but if you are looking for something a little more casual for the mood and the pocketbook, you need not step beyond the curtain, and you can still feel other wordly. People tell secrets in these spaces.  Their words fold into the darkness, into the warmth, into the shaped, flowered, languid ironwork of Jadyn Fisher.

I will forever seek the core elements of good service and I wonder if they are mingling with these secrets.  In a business where it seems frequent staff turnover is not uncommon, I’ve looked for the perfect formulas, key words of advice, rules of the trade.  What I’ve learned is that a long-term staff is a successful formula—a chemistry as powerful as the chemistry that creates fabulous, sensual, unforgettable meals.  Laura confirms this notion when she lists off how long some of the staff have worked with her and Jim: five, six, seven, eight, nine years.  She claims that they stick around because of her and Jim’s flexibility. “Finding a good employee is hard, we like to make it work for their lifestyle. We’ve seen the other side of it—we’re here working with them. I would never ask somebody to do something I wouldn’t.”

As Laura tells me that they doubled their staff from 13 to 26 her eyes get wider and her tone indicates how daunting a task it was.  She was concerned about how it would impact the family-like quality that they had become accustomed to among the staff. But they have adjusted and her new staff seems to grasp the style and knowledge that has been indicative of the Red Bird in the past, yet also reflects this fresh aspect of the establishment.

“We don’t have that many rules—it’s best for each individual person to shine through.  People like that aspect of it. All of them are professional. They generally like what they do and it comes across.”

It seems to work for these servers of a feather.  And doesn’t it seem simple: let your employees be themselves, give them incentive to learn and stick around, and encourage them to taste the wine.  They’ll tell you about it next time you visit.

They might also tell you about the six course meal they are hosting on December 5th, with Chateau Montelena, or that they have live music every Monday, or that they work for sustainability by using local meats and other products, or that UM hosts book signings with local authors in the lobby on First Fridays, or that Jim and Laura have been known to send their chefs to cooking school or take their staff to Walla Walla, or that Tom Catmull, one of my favorite local musicians and a long time Red Bird server, is a madman with a paintbrush.

But they probably won’t tell you all those things at once, because they know, as Laura puts it, “There is such a thing as too much info.” And I know, that it takes a balance of keen observation and subtle devotion to make an impression with all those secrets floating around.

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