A 1 a.m. dinner at Carmel's

Tamara Charles moved about the kitchen, slashing open cardboard containers of ingredients and stashing their contents in refrigerators, during our Tuesday-morning interview in the back of Carmel’s Bar and Grill. Charles, who first started working in the restaurant industry at 15 years old, grew up in Stevensville. Before Carmel’s, she owned a steakhouse for seven years.

When Tamara and her husband, Shane Charles, took ownership of Carmel’s in December 2023, “it had nicotine dripping down the walls and hadn’t been painted probably in about 20-some-odd years.”

“It went through a lull where it was known for fights and drugs and crazy stuff,” Tamara said as she discarded a collapsed box. “And now we just want it to be the mom-and-pop Applebee’s of the whole area.”

I wanted to see for myself. So at 1 a.m. on Wednesday, I dined at Carmel’s.

The bar’s roughly 10 patrons seemed a bit surprised to see me walk in, but I received a warm welcome and a menu. Carmel’s offers lunch and dinner specials daily. It was taco Tuesday. I appreciated the liberal definition of “Tuesday.”

I ordered three beef tacos and a Coldsmoke, one of their five year-round draft beers. Shane said the beef is fresh, along with most everything else on the menu. Carmel’s only freezes a small, snack-ish selection of the items, like mozzarella sticks, chicken strips and breaded mushrooms.

During the brief wait for my tacos, which came out with crispy tortillas and tender meat, I absorbed a vibrant bar and grill experience.  

The place started to shut down around 1:40 a.m. in preparation of its 2 a.m. closing time.

Less than 12 hours later, I went back for lunch and asked the owners about why they keep it open so late.

“If you’re not open, you don’t get customers. That’s the way I put it,” Shane said. “You gotta keep the doors open.”

Tamara said they keep it open late “because nobody else is doing it.”

The current clientele doesn’t exactly overlap with patrons of the past.

“We definitely have a regular base. Did we kick some of those regular base out? Absolutely. 1,000%,” Tamara said.

She wants it to be “a family establishment.”

“We’re a family,” Tamara said. “Our employees are part of our family.”

Tiffany Wyant, who has worked as a cook and bartender at Carmel’s for most of the last eight months, also considered her coworkers “like a family.”

“My kids, personally, after school, they walk down here, play pool and drink soda,” Wyant said.

Ryan Sullivan, who joined the team last month after six months as a regular, took an interview on Wednesday from a seat at Carmel’s bar. Alongside health insurance and 401(k)s, employees eat for free during shifts and get discounts when they come in off shift.  

“I’ve just come to really enjoy this place. Today’s my day off and I’m just sitting here hanging out,” Sullivan said. “It’s just a good environment and a good place.”

Carmel’s is open 11 a.m. to 2 a.m. daily, and Shane doesn’t entertain the idea of moving that window up.

“Everybody’s asking me to do breakfast. I don’t have time,” Shane said. During operating hours, Shane guarantees a homemade quality in their hand-pattied burgers, home-cut fries and across the menu.

The menu’s front cover describes the history of the building, which has been home to dining and drinking establishments since 1936. During that time, the menu reports a history of owners covertly peddling homemade wine and almost 90 years of competitive shuffleboard.

Shane also has his own connection to the area’s bar scene.

“My mom was a third generation bar owner. My mom and dad had the Lucky Lady and my grandparents had The Chief bar,” said Shane, who was born in Deer Lodge and grew up in Anaconda.

“I came into this bar when I was a little kid, played out on this street with my friends,” Shane said. “And Mr. Diri would invite us in for a candy bar and a soda so we wouldn’t break his windows when we were playing ball.”

Today, Carmel’s sponsors softball, darts, horseshoe, shuffleboard and pool teams in Anaconda.

“I think we’re doing pretty good,” Shane said. “There’s still a lot of people in this town that don’t even know we serve food. That’s what’s sad. A lot of the people have a stigma that ‘if you go to Carmel’s, you’re gonna get in a fight.’ That ain’t gonna happen on my watch.”

I’ve now been to Carmel’s on three occasions at three totally different times. Looking back, it ranks as my safest and most delicious investigation so far.