Red Caboose closing doors after 4-year run

Four years after he built the distinctive Red Caboose diner on Central Avenue, owner Richard Kramer is closing the doors Sunday night, Sept. 12.

"It's been an enjoyable business, and I enjoyed serving the community," he said.

While details of the new owner's financing are not concluded, rumors around town are that the diner will become a yogurt and coffee shop.

At the same time, Kramer is in talks with investors interested in purchasing Casey's Bar next door. While the new owner of the Red Caboose would get the lot, the building and the equipment, but not the business, Kramer said, the new owner of Casey's would get the business and the liquor license, but not the real estate.

The two lots and businesses were initially listed together for $2.1 million. The price dropped to $1.775 million before the properties were separated.

Kramer, who took over day-to-day management of the Red Caboose for the past two years, said he bought Casey's Bar and the empty lot to the south in 2001. He had the prefabricated caboose-shaped diner installed on the empty lot in 2006.

"Casey's was my first bar," he said. "I initially planned it as a tear-down, but after a while, I found the business to be better than I thought."

Casey's is a good business and easy to operate, he said.

"I like the place," he said. "I've met a lot of interesting people there."

Kramer said the controversy over Friday and Saturday night pole-dancing on a pool table in back, initiated by Johnny Schultz of Mobile Beat, which runs music at the bar, was "overrated."

Casey's is located in the oldest building in downtown Whitefish. The Sprague Saloon opened for business there in 1905, and the site has been home to saloons or billiard halls under different owners ever since.

The Sprague & Danhisser Saloon opened there in 1911 and a billiard hall was established there by William Parent in the early 1930s before becoming the Darnell & Schafer Saloon in 1934. Bill Murr bought the place in 1950 and named it the Club Bar. His stepson Pat Casey took over ownership in 1967 and renamed it Casey's.

Kramer, who kept the name Casey's when he bought the bar, said the building is not officially designated historical and could theoretically be torn down. He said it sits on "old-growth timbers' and leans about 18 inches to the south.

"I put a lot of money into it," he said. "A new fire system, concrete reinforcing on the south side when I put in the Red Caboose. It probably has 40 or 50 years of life left in it."

Kramer said interested buyers of the old saloon would probably do a little remodeling, such as flooring, but not much more.

"It's a working man's bar, and they want to keep it that way," he said.

While the employees at Casey's might keep their jobs, the same cannot be said for those at the diner. Kramer said he's been talking to other local restaurant owners trying to line up work for the Red Caboose workers.

"Some owners are interested," he said. "They're good employees — some have been there since the Red Caboose opened."

Kramer and his brother own a company that manufactures environmentally-sound sandblasting equipment for use in shipyards. He said that except for several items on loan from the Stumptown Historical Society, he owns the railroad memorabilia in the diner, and that will go home with him.

He wants to retain the Red Caboose name, however, and try marketing some of the diner's recipes online, including the hot fudge sauce, the Cajun Creole sauce and the French fry sauce. He said he hired Kandahar Lodge chef Andy Blanton as a consultant to come up with some recipes and a menu for the Red Caboose.

"The recipes have been tweaked over the years," he said.

Ken Tarpley, who cooked at the Red Caboose since it opened, said he did some of the recipe tweaking.

"Some were too hot at first," he said. "We had to turn down the heat."

Among the popular items on the menu, he said, were the Big Joe burger, the buffalo rib-eye steak, the Big Boy Benedict with andouille sausage, and the "candied red onion capered dill cream cheese" sauce.

"We had a lot of good times there. We rocked it pretty steady for a while," Tarpley said. "People came from all over the world. Canadians loved the poutine. It's a damn shame to see it go."

The Red Caboose began as a 24-hour diner, but it had difficulties over the years with drawing enough customers in the spring and fall shoulder seasons, Tarpley said. He addressed speculation that losing a BNSF Railroad contract and competition by street vendors led to the diner's demise.

"We didn't get a lot of business from the railroad," he said. "One time we cooked 50-some burgers for BNSF workers when there was a derailment."

While Kramer fought the city for more than a year over an ordinance that allowed vendors to sell food on Central Avenue, Tarpley said vendors selling pizza or pulled pork sandwiches across the street didn't hurt the diner.

"I don't think it made a lot of difference," he said. "People who want bacon and eggs will come in. Pizza on the street won't put you out of business."