Sometimes you go get a breakfast sandwich and your whole life flashes before your eyes. Or, in my case, it was just a flashback of the mid-1990s, hanging out across the street from Hellgate High at lunch with a mix of D&D gamers, drama kids and punks.
The breakfast sandwich was from Biscuit Hound Cafe, a new spot on South Avenue in the building where Drum Coffee used to be. The sandwich I ordered, “The Lab,” consisted of a breakfast sausage patty, over-medium egg, sharp cheddar, and dijon mustard inside a warm, house-made biscuit.
But it wasn’t the sandwich, which was rich and satisfying, that delivered me back in time. It was when I spoke with Dave Hilliard — who owns Biscuit Hound with his wife, Kara Krause — and we realized we had both grown up in Missoula and gone to Hellgate, and that, yes, we’d been in the same year, hanging out in the same circle of angsty kids, drinking coffee at midnight in diners and frequenting all-ages punk shows. We’d both left Missoula and vowed to never come back.
That was when there was barely any good coffee in Missoula. Everyone I knew was still just drinking it for the buzz, not the taste. And there weren’t a lot of options for fresh, from-scratch food, either, save for some of the local bakeries. Hilliard left for Seattle in his 20s, right when the coffee boom was really peaking, and he started working in restaurants with Krause. Their path back to Missoula wasn’t a straight line, but he returned, like a lot of us do.
Another weed shop or real estate office and I would have shaken my fist at the sky.
Drum still has its East Broadway location, but the South Avenue spot had been near-perfect for a coffee shop: right on the bus line, near Sentinel High School, and in a neighborhood with almost no other cafe options. So, when Biscuit Hound Cafe opened its doors in early September, I was relieved. Good. Another weed shop or real estate office and I would have shaken my fist at the sky. It’s extra sweet to have a longtime Missoulian be the one running it. It’s strange to be so much older now, we agreed. In adolescence, especially in the 1990s slacker era, you can’t imagine yourself in the future or that all your experiences might bring you back home to make biscuits from scratch for a town that needed more breakfast fare.
A menu full of biscuit sandwiches
The menu of sandwiches at Biscuit Hound Cafe revolves around one important element: a scratch-made buttermilk biscuit, baked fresh daily. There are several savory options, like their signature sandwich “The Rescue” — over-medium egg, crispy bacon, sharp cheddar, fresh tomato, local greens and house-made Hound Sauce for $12 — and sweet options such as The Border Collie, which has seasonal berries, vanilla whipped cream, and house-made lavender syrup.
What’s up with the dogs?
Every sandwich on the menu is named for a dog breed. Hilliard and Krause have spent years rescuing dogs. “We love rescuing troubled pups and helping them out, giving them a life where they can become loveable creatures instead of somebody that might not make it tomorrow,” Hilliard says. “That’s where the Biscuit Hound thing comes from.”
From-scratch ethics
Hilliard has a degree in wildlife biology, not a culinary one. He acquired some kitchen skills in college during an “impromptu apprenticeship” with a master chef. “I just kind of fell in love with it,” he says. But it was before that, back in high school, while working at the beloved Old Town Café (RIP the best veggie browns in the world), that he took owner Ram Murphy’s insistence on scratch cooking to heart. “He really cared about it,” Hilliard says. “Everything had to be made in-house. He showed me that scratch cooking really does matter.”
The sourcing
Hilliard is trying to source as much of the menu from Montana as he can — flour, pork, milk, and coffee, plus gluten-free items from local bakers. The biscuit flour itself is a blend: mostly organic white flour from Montana Flour & Grains, cut with about a third Conservation Grains’ “old and ancient” mix — spelt and a kamut-like heirloom grain that gives the dough a nutty flavor and texture. There’s just one ingredient he can’t find locally yet: buttermilk.
The coffee
Biscuit Hound partners with Black Coffee Roasting and Lake Missoula Tea. Hilliard, who ran a bakery and coffee shop in Seattle, says he sampled his way through every roaster in the city — the city that made coffee famous! — to find a supplier. For Biscuit Hound, he chose Black Coffee, calling their coffee roasting the best he’s found. The drink menu is simple by design: espresso, brewed coffee with a rotating single-origin alongside the house roast, tea and Italian soda, plus about six house-made syrups.
Biscuit Hound Cafe is open daily from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m.
