By Diane Larson
Photo by Jim Larson
The new owners of the Uptown Cafe, Jimmy and Angie Peterson, sat down with Jim Larson of ButteNews.net and talked about their recent purchase of the Uptown Café, their previous project The Lakehouse at Georgetown Lake, and their plans for the future.
In 2019, the year before COVID hit, the Petersons acquired the old Brown Derby at Georgetown. Through a lot of hard work and long hours, they remodeled the physical building as well as the type and flow of service and rebranded it as it became The Lakehouse. “It ran pretty successfully for four years,” said Angie.
“And then we decided to jump in and invest in Butte,” Angie said. Jimmy was born in Butte and Angie lived here for many years. Angie mentioned, “I had the pleasure of working at the Freeway and got to know the people and always loved Butte. Butte has been a second home to me.”
The Petersons have also lived in Phillipsburg, and Twin Bridges and grew up in the restaurant industry. For a while, they both decided to work for corporate America. Angie was in the medical field and Jimmy was in IT. “I was in the microchip industry for basically 25 years,” Jimmy said, and then added, “Getting back to the Lakehouse, it was a good excuse for being closer to family and being closer to home.”
This sparked their desire to be in the restaurant business and get back to their roots.
When they saw that the Uptown was available, for them, it meant good timing and a good excuse to “invest in Butte and try to keep this tradition going,” explained Jimmy.
With that said, it was also evident in the new economy that certain changes were going to have to be made. “With the current market, inflation, and with our food costs, we were losing money every day,” said Jimmy about the buffet-style lunch service that was the trademark of the old Uptown.
In the new Uptown, as you walk into this space, the first thing to notice is an elegant bar to the right, just in front of the window. “When we toured this when we were looking at it, that was the first thing that we said. We’re like this needs a cocktail lounge. We came in here as customers long before we even thought about purchasing, and we would stand at the door and wait to get a table. And so now it’s nice you come in, have a cocktail, get a table, or you could even eat at the bar,” explained Angie.
The space has changed somewhat but not too much, the layout is slightly different.
The lunch is now full service with a menu that provides some new and some traditional dishes. To keep the people of Butte happy they offer a Throwback Thursday. On this day they offer some of the most popular menu items. It is their way of reaching out to the people of Butte and taking care of them. Mixing the old with the new. “We want to make everyone happy. So, we’re reaching out to the new but still trying to respect the old ways,” Jimmy said.
“Our new menu basically focuses on health, for those that are looking for healthier options,” said Angie. Trying to create fun options for those that are on keto diets or gluten resistant as well as other issues. The new menu has been redesigned with all of this in mind. “It is our aim to please everybody,” Angie said. And they continue to work on what the community wants as well as their diet needs.
Another much-desired change is the placement of the salad bar. “It’s a high-quality salad bar. The food is high quality, but it is also fast; fast, and fresh. So, anyone working uptown can come in, just like the old days, get food quickly, and get back to work, if they want to,” said Jimmy.
The lunch crowd is considerable. “We have a lot of people from Northwestern Energy, the Federal Building, the courthouse, and other surrounding uptown businesses,” Angie explained. Jimmy added that the deliveries are still going strong as well. “Not only are we convenient for people to walk in and have lunch here, but we’re still delivering all around town too,” Jimmy said.
The dinner menu, at the time of this interview, was still in process of being finalized, but Jimmy explained that they have a lot of good ideas come they are working on and streamlining those.
The Uptown is an iconic business in Butte. The Petersons explained that they are brainstorming daily on how to increase what is offered to the customers with the number of staff. Like most businesses in Butte, they have had their share of issues trying to get enough staff to offer the best of service. “We’re always trying to improve and keep this business thriving,” said Jimmy.
