Last Tuesday, maybe ten minutes before opening, Blake Cilwick was prepping Gary’s Local $6 Burgers for the lunch crowd, and his burger-flipping partner, Tom Winter, had a few minutes to talk before customers started lining up.
“We did two soft openings and ran out of food within an hour both times,” said Winter, a former Missoula legislator and 2020 congressional candidate. “And then on the first day we opened for real, we ran out of food in two hours.”
The Gary’s Local $6 Burgers truck is set up on the corner of Front and Clay streets. It’s named after Winter’s dog, a fluffy, excitable stray. Winter owns the food truck and the property on which it sits, and he and Cilwick both cook.
Winter said the goal of Gary’s is to provide simple, locally sourced, nostalgic and delicious food that’s affordable. The only other place you’re going to get a $6 burger in Missoula is probably at McDonald’s, he noted.
The burger comes from the Line and Rimel ranches on the edge of Missoula’s South Hills. The chips are from the Atomic Potato Chip Company in Arco, Idaho, next to an old atomic testing range—chips that last year won the “Coolest Thing Made in Idaho” contest put on by the Idaho Manufacturing Association.
“They’re the coolest little ma and pop operation who are obsessed with potato chips,” Winter said, adding Gary’s is the only restaurant in Montana offering them.
The caramelized onions are Walla Wallas. The onion-steamed buns are Franz, and the cheese is Kraft.
“We could not find a local purveyor of yellow cheese,” Winter said. “A burger looks terrible with white cheese when it’s melted over caramelized onions, and Kraft cheese was made for this.”
The menu is simple—just a burger, chips, a few shakes and some soft drinks in glass bottles. To make the shakes they use ice cream from Big Dipper, Flathead cherries from Bowman Cherry Orchards, and Ducrey Chocolate Maker down the street supplies the cacao nibs. A Fruity Pebble shake was a recent special, an example of blending nostalgia with local ingredients.
Gary’s allows Winter to tap into his culinary education. He dropped out of college but ultimately finished culinary school in Paris. Now, he runs a burger truck—a trajectory similar to Jon Favreau’s character in the movie Chef, as this reporter noted.
“I think he’s, like, a divorced dad and I’m not there yet,” Winter said.
Gary’s Local Burgers is open every day from 12:30 to 2:30 p.m. and 6:30 to 11:00 p.m. On Friday and Saturday nights it stays open till 2 a.m., aiming to serve bar-goers and restaurant workers just off their shifts. Online ordering is also available.
Winter said anyone experiencing food insecurity and unable to pay can walk up to the window and get a free meal.
“I think it’s just the barest minimum we can do if you’re trying to serve your community,” Winter said.
The way he sees it, bringing together as many local elements as possible—Gary’s also patronizes local compost and glass recycling businesses—to sell an affordable meal is a recipe for community.
