Bigfork Inn Reopening Update: Why the Restored Inn Is Still Closed

Walk down Electric Avenue this month and the Bigfork Inn looks ready. The new red clock by the entrance ticks the actual time. The turf-covered patio is trimmed. The dance floor inside has been reinforced and topped with fresh wood, though you'd have to peek through the windows to know that, because the doors are still locked. A sign in the window says the same thing it's said for months: closed for restoration, almost there, thanks for being patient.

Here's what most people walking past don't realize. The Flathead Beacon reported that the restoration was complete in May. The search for an operator only started once the hammers stopped, and there's no reason to expect it moves any faster than the five years that came before it.

What Five Years of Work Actually Bought

Michael Brooks, a structural engineer, and his wife Kelly Couzens Brooks, an interior designer, bought the Bigfork Inn in April 2021 specifically to keep it from becoming condominiums. What followed was not a quick refresh. The couple rewired the entire building and replaced the plumbing, HVAC, lighting and sound system. They reframed the interior, added new insulation, and pulled down the suspended ceiling tiles that had hidden the original wood ceiling for decades, exposing and staining the log beams underneath. Doors and windows were replaced with historically accurate versions, fitted with the inn's original brass handles. A new 2,000-square-foot addition now holds bar seating, an entertainment space and a state-of-the-art kitchen, since the old one was reportedly in such bad shape that even donation wasn't an option. An ADA-accessible ramp, several ADA-compliant bathrooms and a new elevator were added along the way.

Compare that to what earlier owners did. Bob and Suzie Keenan, who ran the Inn from 1982 to 2018, added a library, a balcony, a second dining room known as the "red room," and a deck. Those were additions to a working restaurant. What the Brooks family did was closer to a rebuild, and it shows in how long it took.

Four Owners, One Building

Every prior transition on that list took months, not years, because the building was already operating and the new owner just needed to step in. This time the building sat empty through the entire process, which means whoever takes it over isn't inheriting a running restaurant. They're opening one from scratch inside a fully finished shell.

The Search for an Operator

After the restoration wrapped, the couple hosted a couple of catered events on May 14 and May 17, including a sold-out open house that raised money for the community effort to preserve River View Place along the Swan River. Then they closed the doors again.

Michael Brooks has been direct about what they're waiting for. As he put it to the Flathead Beacon, they want an operator who cares, who has real experience, and who fits into the community, adding that people like that are unique.

"We're looking for an operator that really cares, that has plenty of experience, that integrate with the community, they're going to do everything they can to have this building serve the community, and those people are unique."

That's a narrower filter than most vacant restaurant spaces get. It's also worth noticing that the Brooks family isn't operating it themselves. The reopening depends on finding an outside operator.

What's Filling the Gap on Electric Avenue This Season

The town hasn't been waiting around. A few things worth knowing if you're deciding where to eat or what to watch for downtown right now:

Cup O'Soul, the farm-to-table ice cream shop, opened a second location inside the Bigfork Inn's café space in July, giving the building at least one lit storefront while the main restaurant search continues. It's a small use of a large building, but it means the corner isn't fully dark.

A few blocks away, the Riverbend Concert Series had a scare earlier this year about whether it would need to leave the location it's called home for more than 50 years. That worry is resolved for now. The 2026 season is finishing out at its longtime spot, which matters if you've been going to those shows for decades and weren't sure this was the last summer for them there.

Electric Avenue itself closed to regular traffic on September 6 for the Rumble in the Bay Car Show, this year built around a "Vintage Farm Trucks" theme tied to the country's 250th anniversary and Montana's 150th. If you missed it, that's the kind of event that turns the same street the Bigfork Inn sits on into something entirely different for a day, classic trucks parked where cars usually are, with the Inn's finished facade as a backdrop nobody could walk inside.

For the kind of dinner the Inn used to host, the two default rooms in town right now are Schafer's at the Eagle Bend Golf Club, which has been serving that casual fine dining niche since 2022, and Bonfire out in Woods Bay, reworked under Chef Derrick Wcislak since a 2024 ownership change, known these days for its monthly dim sum brunch and shared plates built around Montana ingredients. Neither replaces what the Bigfork Inn was to this town for a century, but they're where the demand has gone while the building on Electric Avenue waits.

What to Actually Watch For

If you've been checking the Bigfork Inn's website every few weeks expecting a reopening date, it's worth resetting what you're watching for. The renovation news already happened, back in May. The next real update isn't going to be a date. It's going to be a name, whichever operator the Brooks family eventually decides is the right fit for a building they spent five years and a great deal of care putting back together.

That's a different kind of waiting than construction delays. Construction has a schedule. A search for the right person doesn't. The building on Electric Avenue is finished. What happens inside it next is still an open question, and there's no reason to think it resolves on any particular timeline.

This is the kind of detail that's easy to miss if you're not paying attention to Bigfork week to week, which is exactly the kind of local read Your Montana Road Home tries to bring to this stretch of Flathead Lake. If watching a town this closely, down to its restaurant openings and its unresolved landmarks, sounds like the kind of place you'd want to call home, that's a conversation worth having with Crystal.

This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.