Commentary: Cowboy Cafe’s change to a bistro a sign of a new Medora

MEDORA, N.D. – North Dakota’s public and private investments in Medora and Billings County are unprecedented in the region’s history. Tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer dollars, business development and philanthropic giving have been piling into this once-sleepy cow town, forever changing its character and, to some degree, its western charm. The big state money has meant big changes, and the long-term effects – whether for good or ill – have yet to be assessed.   

The North Dakota Legislature, for example, ponied up $50 million (to be matched by private donations) for the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library operations endowment. The library is having a marvelous first season. Visitations hit 100,000 in the first two months, and reviews have been overwhelmingly positive. Add to the state appropriations, millions more in public money for major road projects (a round-about in Medora!) and other transportation and bridge upgrades. Everywhere a visitor looks, construction equipment is building and digging and repairing – a few projects funded locally but mostly by combinations of state, federal and county government funding.

It’s a lot of money in a place that has not necessarily been the beneficiary of such a high level of public investment. However, the tourism growth that began decades ago with the Medora musical and has blossomed into the state’s primary summer tourist attraction has sometimes been accomplished without sufficient attention to the foundational character and genuine historical attractions of Badlands country. The magnificent and world-class TR library has accelerated the process. There are large and small indications of the pervasiveness of the change. A small one is worthy of notice.  

Any North Dakotan who has been a regular visitor to Medora knows about the Cowboy Cafe. A fixture on Fourth Street a couple of blocks from the center of town for some 40 years, the cafe was unique in every sense of that frequently misused descriptor.

“Was” is the operative word because the Cowboy Cafe is gone and its location is now occupied by the L’Amour Bistro. The western ranching and rodeo-themed cafe has been erased by an apparently sincere attempt to create a French-like ambiance that connects with the Marquis and Marquesa DeMores, who indeed were important figures in Medora’s pioneer history. The town is named after her. To that end, the bistro features two large portraits of the couple, but little else that has anything to do with the town’s cowboy and ranching history. There is nary a tip of the (cowboy) hat to the former cafe’s extraordinary display of vintage ranch and rodeo photographs, western artifacts, or the area ranch cattle brands that were burned into the scarred wooden tabletops. While some ranches faded into history, others are still active multi-generational spreads in Billings and Golden Valley counties. And of course, the cafe’s signature cowboy soup is not on the menu. Cowboy soup in a faux French bistro? Of course not!

“So what?” one might say. And for patrons of the bistro who never experienced the cafe’s down-home food and furnishings that proudly honored the region’s rodeo and ranching culture, “so what?” makes sense. They don’t know what has been lost. 

It might be that the photos, artifacts and branded tables are property that the previous family owners of the cafe wanted to keep. That is surely understandable. But that circumstance does not preclude the new owners from gathering up similar memorabilia – of which there is plenty in Billings County alone – to, at the very least, let patrons know the bistro has taken over a very special space in Medora’s western lore. Even the patrician Marquis tried his hand at ranching.

There remain really good local eateries in Medora that honor the town’s heritage. Among them is the 100-year-old Little Missouri Saloon and Dining Room, an authentic western saloon, filled with reminders of why the town is there. Boots Bar and Grill, which has been in the same location for decades on Pacific Avenue under other names, also keeps the region’s western history and hospitality with excellent unpretentious food served up in a scuffed dining room and welcoming atmosphere.

But the demise of the Cowboy Cafe and the replacement bistro are reminders of change in Medora that is altering the character of the historic town. Whether for good or ill is a matter of perspective.

That being said, the new bistro is very much worth a visit. It is a fine restaurant that adds a new and different element to the redefined charm of the town.  

But a “bistro” – a bistro, for mercy’s sake – in western, cowboy, ranching, Teddy Roosevelt’s Medora? And redecorating the old dining room so as to obliterate any trace of an historic cafe that felt like the old west just walking in the door? Say it ain’t so!

Sometimes the investment of millions of dollars in state money is beneficial. Sometimes it’s not. This time, it seems, the consequences of Medora’s accelerating development, funded by a combination of taxpayer dollars and for-profit investments, were not adequately assessed, and will not be. That horse is out of the barn. The demise of the Cowboy Cafe might seem a small matter, but it’s also a clear indication that the Medora of old is passing away.