Cara Reck has a vision. With her husband Cody, she wants to create a family-friendly, community-focused social space in a vacant building in Montana City. She doesn’t yet have the money to start the operation or to lease the building. And it’s not clear that the property is zoned for the business she wants to run.
But Reck soldiers on.
The idea of the Double S Tap Room and Coffee Bar made its debut on Facebook last November. “Meet us and our business!” Reck wrote in her first post, which imagined “a large open room with plenty of seating, a central gas fireplace with comfy furniture, a retail space with Montan made gifts,” a kitchen for a “reputable cookie maker” and space upstairs that would be rentable for special occasions, various groups and co-working space.
She was describing the building at 7 Wonder Road formerly occupied by Eagle Ambulance Service, which provided emergency medical services to north Jefferson County until abruptly closing in September, 2022. Reck’s post even had a rendering of the building with the Double S logo affixed to its porch roof.
Nine months later, that dream hasn’t been realized. The Recks say they have established relationships with suppliers of beer, coffee and baked goods. Cara Reck has developed an extensive business plan that has, she says, been positively received by the Montana Business Assistance Connection (MBAC), a non-profit business development organization that now is helping her with the start-up process.
And the current owner of the building, Tom Schulke, has been open to letting the Recks review the building and infrastructure so that they can plan how it can be used. No formal agreements have been struck for a lease or sale.
What’s missing is investment. “In order for us to begin construction and such,” Cara says, “we would need a partner to invest $300,000-$325,000. We have approximately $325,000 in loans available through MBAC.”
Reck is no stranger to running a business. She currently works at Helena Family Dentistry, but before that ran a mobile dental hygiene business that traveled throughout Montana providing basic dental care. Reck says although she loves the work, the physical stress on her body made her begin to think about new ideas.
Reck came up with the vision of a coffee shop where people can stop in and quickly jump back onto the highway. After sharing the idea with a friend who has a cottage bakery license but no distribution, the two came up with a plan to create the coffee shop that served locally roasted coffee and the home cooked bakery items.
They added the idea of a tap room, serving Montana microbrews. But “we don’t want to have a sit-down dinner place – there’s already a couple of those here,” Reck said. “And we don’t want to become the big drinking house or casino. There’s plenty of places to do that.”
Reck’s plan is to run the business during normal daylight business hours, closing earlier in the evening, and be more welcoming to families and children. “I think that is what the community needs, someplace they can get together with friends and family and have a nice experience,” Reck said.
Eric Seidensticker, senior program officer at MBAC, is helping shepherd the Reck’s plan. “Our SCOPE program helped Cara with this at first, and then we started running with it,” Seidensticker said. He explained the SCOPE program deploys experienced business and technical volunteers who can evaluate business ideas and plans, vetting them out before recommending next steps to the MBAC team. “This one really has some potential, we think,” Seidensticker said.
The quest for funding has been rocky. In February, Reck posted on the Facebook page, “We are this close to hitting our first finish line! Praying the financing that we need to get there is provided!!” But that investor, she said recently, fell through.
The Recks also sought out individual investors, advertising a “Founder’s Club” whose members would pay $100, $500 or $1000 for benefits that included limited edition t-shirts, free drink tickets and discount coupons and, for the “summit” level, a personalized beer or coffee mug.
But Reck says that appeal wasn’t as successful as she had hoped. “We had a few people jump, mostly our friends and family,” Cara says. “And we have a couple that reached out a month or so ago, but haven’t heard back yet.”
Reck said she and Cody are working with Schulke on a five-year viability plan. “We would be wanting to lease at first,” Cara says, which would enable them to make the initial building modifications the architect they hired has recommended. And, of course, to determine if the coffee bar/tap room combination idea actually has validity.
County Planning Director LaDana Hintz says it may not. “Zoning is an issue,” she said. “They could do a coffee shop,” but the property isn’t zoned for an establishment that serves alcohol. That, Hintz said, would require a public hearing, “and I’ve already heard from people who don’t want a bar there.”
Seidensticker says zoning shouldn’t be a problem. And Reck continues to pursue her vision.“We are looking for the one right person,” she says, “who might want to help make this dream possible.”
