Bozeman, Montana: Tacos, Trails, and Tune Up Nights
Andrea and I flew into Bozeman not entirely sure what to expect. I knew the town mostly by reputation—an upscale city referenced often in Netflix’s hit series Yellowstone, ski country, and home to Montana State University. But two things surprised me before we’d even left the airport parking lot: how small and pleasant that airport was, and how much of the town reminded me of Boulder and Fort Collins.
Day 1
I started the morning the way I start most mornings on the road, with a base run—4:59/km, not bad for running with Saucony Jazz “lifestyle” shoes. Andrea was supposed to join me for a second one, but her pillow made a more persuasive argument than I did, so I headed out solo. Bozeman at that hour was full of small, friendly collisions: neighbors saying good morning like they meant it, women walking to yoga class with mats strapped to their backs like quivers, and a farmer’s market already filling up with folks who looked like they did yoga for a living.
Breakfast was at The Farmer’s Daughters Café & Eatery, which was tucked into the charming RSVP Hotel that we stayed at. The restaurant runs on farm-to-table ingredients and a fair amount of pink decor. Andrea ordered the avocado toast. I got the Handsome Scramble, which sounds like a compliment and tastes like one too.
Andrea made an observation over breakfast that would repeat itself for the rest of the trip: (almost) everyone in Bozeman is fascinatingly good-looking. Not Los Angeles good-looking—more like Colorado good-looking, where the beauty comes with a smile and visible cardiovascular fitness.
We walked downtown afterward, past a shipping-container house, a garage wallpapered in old license plates, and a brick home decorated with wooden sunflowers and peace signs. Bozeman’s take on curb appeal is part ranch town, part art project.
Main Street itself was busy without being crowded. It’s a downtown that still has independent shops instead of the usual national chains.
We spent the early afternoon at the hotel pool, reading under umbrellas like people with nowhere else to be, then walked over to Chula’s Taqueria for a late lunch—a bright blue converted bus that’s become one of Bozeman’s better-known food trucks. Andrea had quesadillas. I ordered two tacos, one pollo asado and one adobada. Both were stacked with enough meat and vegetables that eating them without a fork would have been impossible were there not two reinforcing flour tortillas per taco.
In the late afternoon Andrea and I ran an easy five kilometers together—her legs finally willing to cooperate—before heading to dinner at Gute Laune, a German beer hall tucked above the Rialto theater on Main Street. We caught a jazz set that wrapped up by 7:00 p.m., early enough to still have most of the evening ahead of us.
From there we headed to the Tune Up Basement Bar, tucked below the Kimpton Armory Hotel. A musician named Rob Wolf played country music from 9:00 to 11:00 p.m. to a packed, appreciative room. He and his band were really good.
We ended up seated next to a couple from Chihuahua, Mexico, married 40 years and clearly still enjoying each other’s company—at least while they were drunk. The husband had ridden an enduro motorcycle from Argentina to Patagonia, from Mexico to Canada, and across Alaska—casually mentioned, the way some people mention a weekend trip to the lake.
They offered us salted pecans, and when they noticed I was drinking an Athletic Golden non-alcoholic beer, the husband bought us both small pours of tequila. We thanked him, clinked glasses, and then pretended to sip the liquor but actually just let it enter our mouths and then let it fall back into the shotglass. Some gestures are too kind to refuse but too unhealthy to actually drink.
Day 2
Rain moved in overnight and left the roads wet, so I skipped the morning run and saved my legs for a Sprint 8 workout in the afternoon instead. Andrea and I went back to The Farmer’s Daughters for a second day of breakfast. This time I ordered avocado toast—what Andrea had yesterday—which was served with a side salad that happily doubled as a vegetable quota for the day. The staff, all young, capable, and (there it was again) strikingly good-looking, kept the whole operation running with real warmth.
After breakfast we stopped by the American Computer & Robotics Museum, which was smaller than I’d imagined but well worth the visit—I wrote a full post about it separately if you want the details.
We swung by Whole Foods so Andrea could stock up on organic Arabic ground coffee to bring home to Spain. Standing in front of an entire wall of flavored sparkling waters, most of them low- or no-calorie, she made a good point: if Spain had this kind of selection, people might reach for a can of bubbles instead of a beer or a soda a little more often.
From there we walked the campus of Montana State University, mostly empty since classes had ended weeks earlier. Between the mountain views and the building style, it reminded me of Colorado State University back home—the Bobcats’ campus could pass for CSU’s cousin. A handful of students were out kicking a soccer ball around, undeterred by the quiet.
We then drove out to Palisade Falls next, about a 40-minute scenic drive from town, for a two-kilometer round-trip hike. A young guy walking his dog was kind enough to take our photo in front of the falls.
Lunch was at Spitz, a Mediterranean spot that calls itself fast casual but moves at its own unhurried pace—not quite Chipotle-speed, but the food was healthy and good enough that we didn’t mind the wait. I had a Remix bowl with harissa, tahini, garbanzos, roasted corn, and chicken, served with two sauces on the side, one of them spicy enough that I kept going back for more. Andrea’s Medi wrap—chicken, hummus, feta, olives, and za’atar—was good and big enough that she gave me part of hers anyway.
Back at the RSVP Hotel, Andrea’s toe was still sore from a run-in with a pool chair, so I went solo for a Sprint 8 workout while she rested up.
Dinner was at Red Tractor Pizza, where I ordered the Waldorf—honey, apple, and caramelized bacon on a wood-fired crust—alongside an Athletic Atletica Mexican-style Copper non-alcoholic beer. Meanwhile, Emma and the Ledge played a rock-leaning set to the dinner crowd.
We finished the night at Haufbrau House, a dive bar in every good sense of the word—stickers on every surface and a laminated sign proudly declaring it the most romantic place in Bozeman, a claim that felt both absurd and somehow earned. It was quiet when we arrived, though the crowd filled in as the night went on.
It was the first place all trip that carded us. “Sorry,” the bartender said, “it’s just that you look so young.” He was almost certainly talking about Andrea, but he carded me too, which I’ll take as a win considering I was a couple of weeks from turning 51.
The night’s musician, an gentleman named Tom Kirwin in his 70s, took his time setting up. But once he started playing country and folk on guitar, his trembling hands didn’t slow him down one bit.
General Impressions
Bozeman is a beautiful, friendly town, and after a few days there, the comparisons to Boulder felt inevitable—both are outdoorsy college towns with a mountain backdrop and a hint of hippie culture layered over serious athleticism. The winters are probably harsher in Bozeman; we still saw (heard) cars running snow tires in June. But summer temperatures turned out to be closer to Fort Collins than I expected—July highs in Bozeman run in the high 70s to low 80s (Fahrenheit), only a few degrees cooler than Fort Collins’ upper 80s, with similarly mild nights. Not the dramatic contrast I’d assumed.
Cost of living tells a similar story. Bozeman runs a bit more expensive than Fort Collins overall, driven mostly by housing, though it’s still considerably more affordable than Boulder, where prices run roughly 40 percent higher. For a town its size, Bozeman’s downtown punches above its weight—small, but full of character and live music most nights of the week.
The airport made the whole trip easier than expected. Small, convenient, and not far from downtown, it still got Andrea back to Porto (where her car from Spain was waiting) with just one connection in Newark. This is the kind of routing you’d expect out of Denver, not a regional airport in southwestern Montana.
