Iconic Missoula Bar’s Owner’s Griz and Community Roots Run Deep

The owner of one of Missoula's most famous bars is a Missoula guy through and through. And it shows in his love for the city and the University of Montana.

MIKE HELEAN HAS BEEN SERVING THEM UP FOR DECADES

Bowen West with UM News Service tells us that University of Montana alumnus Mike Helean has spent much of the past four decades greeting customers, keeping an eye on the room and presiding over a place that has become part sports shrine, local haunt and unofficial downtown clubhouse for Griz Nation.

On a quiet afternoon just ahead of another crazy Grizzly football weekend, Mike is talking with regulars, a role he has embraced for much of the past four decades. 

Helean, owner of Red’s Bar, grew up in Missoula. He attended St. Anthony Grade School, Meadow Hill Grade School and Sentinel High School before arriving at UM in the fall of 1981 to study business management. Like many students, he worked while in college. Unlike most, he also spent four years as a walk-on football player for the Grizzlies.

FROM TEEN YEARS TO NOW

At age 18, Mike began bartending at the Boardroom Lounge, owned by his uncle and located in Missoula’s old Florence Hotel. He continued working in bars whenever he could through college.

Owning a business was always the dream. He just didn’t know it would come in the form of the local watering hole.

After graduation, he kept bartending, worked assorted jobs and began coaching football at Big Sky High School in the mid-1980s. Coaching offered camaraderie and a connection to the sport he loved but not much in the way of a long-term income.

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BARTENDER TO OWNER

In 1987, while coaching, he started bartending at Red’s. Three years later, a new ownership group asked whether he wanted to buy in, and he decided to take the chance.

By 2000 he had bought out his partners and become Red’s sole owner. A willingness to show up, help out and say yes has shaped Red’s relationship with UM and the broader Missoula community. The bar sponsors local athletics, including a Missoula Youth Football team known as the Red’s Bar Bills, and supports Grizzly teams and events when it can. Red’s also operates buses to home football games, carrying two or three busloads of fans to Washington-Grizzly Stadium on a typical Saturday.

On this University of Montana Homecoming weekend, we say congratulations, Mike, and thanks for all you do to support your home town!

More of Bowen West's outstanding article can be found here.