HELENA — This past year has been a turbulent time for many small businesses, but even with the economic waters as rough as they are, Casey and Anne Brooks decided jumped in.
“We came to visit on a motorcycle trip to Helena to see my wife’s family and we noticed that this place was for sale, and it felt right," said Casey. "The next thing you know we’re flipping burgers in Helena, Montana.”
And just like that the RB Drive-In had new owners. The decision to take over the historic restaurant, which first opened its doors in 1948, wasn’t as knee-jerk as that.
Casey and Anne did their research and decided that their restaurant had one important aspect that made this a good pandemic fortified business.
“Well, I think that it being a drive-in made all the difference in the world," Casey told MTN. "Had there been chairs and a dining room and waitresses and servers I don’t think I would have been interested. But the uniqueness of the drive-in definitely piqued my interest.”
“Like with any business you’re going to look at what that business did as far a revenue," Anne told us. "So we knew we could take something and just create it and make it better than it was, give it a face life, things like that. We know the owner did it for 20 years, she did a great job but we’re looking forward to redoing the parking lot, getting the porch ready for people here in the summer. But with COVID the drive-in seemed like a perfect deal because people were not coming into the building so that also hasn’t changed the traffic here to the RB.”
The Brooks didn’t just think the move was a good business idea, but a great chance to be closer to family and a part of Helena.
“I’m excited to get into the community, I’m excited to do a bowling league, I’m excited to maybe do trap shooting,” laughed Anne.