Food - Perfect Breakfast and Lunch – Montana Coffee Traders, Columbia Falls, MT

The first thing you notice when you wander in to Montana Coffee Traders is the people. The staff is warm, friendly, and conversational. The managers focus on customer service skills when they hire. But that’s not all this place has to offer. The food is exquisite, both at breakfast and lunch. The menu is unique, reminiscent of the upscale bistros I remember from my time in Portland, OR or Washington, DC. The price and quantity, however, are significantly better; more like a good old-fashioned home cooked meal café.

The Columbia Falls store (map) also holds regular special events in the evening. Talented local area musicians, usually with a bluegrass/country feel, perform at dinner meals the first Friday of every month. Columbia Falls also holds dinners for a few of the major holidays, like Valentine’s Day.

To give that “place I’d like to hang out” feel, they provide free wireless internet and even a desktop hooked up to the internet for those that didn’t bring their own computer. The Columbia Falls store, which used to be the “Pines Café” before it was Coffee Traders, even has the original pine tree as a center post, adding to that Montana look and feel. They have an entire wall devoted to displaying the work of local area artists with a new artist featured every month.

The coffee is the best in the valley as the company roasts several varieties of their own beans daily at a facility here in Whitefish, MT. They brew the Guatemalan for their core drinks, which is a nice medium bean that provides a rich taste that suits most palettes. They also take training their baristas seriously, ensuring you get a consistently good drink.

Interestingly enough, the company is global, with stores in Moscow, Russia, Monteverde, Costa Rica, a sister store in Austin Texas, and the three main branches here in the Flathead Valley: Columbia Falls, Kalispell, and Whitefish. The Costa Rica location is not only a part of the bean supply, but a way to support the local economy there as Coffee Traders is a leader in the Fair Trade organization and participates in programs to help locals purchase their own land for coffee production. They are also very green in their bean purchases, supporting shade grown coffee, rather than the “clearcut to produce quantity” approach.

I highly recommend stopping in for at least a coffee, breakfast or lunch if time permits, and maybe some dinner and music if you’re around the first Friday of the month.