Distinctly Montana Magazine

YOU CAN’T KEEP A GOOD PASTRAMI DOWN STARKY’S EXPANDS DELI MENU WITH FOCUS ON ARTISINAL FRESH-INGREDIENT FOOD BY ANIKA HANISCH It’s Friday night at Starky’s Authentic Americana in Bozeman, and the crowd is as varied as the food. Everyone is smiling, enjoying their meals and the vibe. A couple sips a red wine after ordering steak. A family finishes their burgers and Dr. Brown’s Sodas, and a group of university students share a bucket of Bozone Select. “That’s the fun of Starky’s at this point; it can be all those things at once,” said Dan Good, the restaurant’s General Manager. Owners Glen and Kathy Stark first opened Starky’s as a small lunch venue in 2004. It was a New York-style deli offering handcrafted pastrami and corned beef sandwiches and other ethnic specialties. Over the past two years, the Starks reinvented the deli, broadening its menu to include dinner and Sunday brunch as well as the original favorites. The “Americana” theme merges regionally-inspired cuisine with the Starks’ well-known passion for fresh-in- gredient food. Kathy and Glen pride themselves on mak- ing everything from scratch: bread, bagels, corned beef, sauces, soup stock, pastries. All of it. “Everything has to be babied, really watched,” Kathy said. The new menu was inspired by the question: When you grow up in a certain region, what do you crave? “We tried to capture a road trip—East to West, North to South,” Kathy explained. Glen added that they want the food to provide an immediate personal connection. “There’s such an emotional tie between food and memories,” he said. “WHAT IS MATT-ZO?” The couple regards the restaurant as a personal “leap of faith.” Originally from Detroit, Glen and Kathy fell in love with Bozeman after vacationing in the area. They began brainstorming ways they could pull off moving 62 DISTINCTLY MONTANA • SUMMER 2011

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