ROUND UP - The Busy Bee Cafe in Roundup closed earlier this month.
Memorabilia, the bar and casino, the front desk and the main dining room made for a neighborhood and family atmosphere.
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“You’ve got to enjoy cooking,” said Mark Petrie about how he kept the restaurant open for 56 years.
Petrie cooked breakfast for his friends at the place he and his wife ran in Roundup.
“It was all home cooking, roast beef, chicken, whatever, and that's the type of cooks we had,” Petrie said.
While the restaurant has shut its doors for good, the Petries and some of their friends recently stopped by to reminisce.
“And the kids just love him,” Mary Ann Petrie said about her husband. “And that's the kind of person he is. He wants everything to satisfy the customer.”
Some of the friends had been customers before the Petries owned the restaurant.
“You just felt like you were at home when you came in here,” said Delores Desjarlais. “The people were so friendly.”
“This was the place, and, and we're not going to have anymore,” said Gene Desjarlais. “It's sad.”
Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte and his wife stopped by last year, and former Gov. Steve Bullock has also been to the Busy Bee.
The guest book has people from all over the country who know about this special place, and they offer words similar to the Petries’ friends.
“We were coming down here after church on Sunday,” said Ron Polich. “This is like an old hometown. Used to know everybody down here, you know, everybody jabbering back and forth.”
“Mother's Day, Father's Day, they always had special Valentines with the balloons and the roses,” said Adele Bissonette.
The restaurant started in 1945 in an old church building from Ryegate, which still has a mural on a restroom wall that used to be on the outside.
“That mural was done in '69,” Mark Petrie said.
That was the year he and his wife purchased the Busy Bee.
And inside has the 1950s style diner that was once filled with memorabilia, including a picture of a Roundup resident with Hall of Fame NBA player Wilt Chamberlain.
And that's just some of Mark's collection.
He would like to preserve the memorabilia, including the iconic horse marquee.
“Little kids, they don't remember Busy Bee They remember the horse,” Mark Petrie said.
The Petries say FEMA has told them the building will need to be demolished since it's in a flood plain.
But the horse and marquee will stay, and the Petries say Musselshell County commissioners will turn the land into a park.
“We're pleased,” Mark said.
“Very pleased,” Mary Ann said. “Thank you, commissioners."
