By Sarah Gianelli EBS ASSOCIATE EDITOR
BIG SKY – Buck’s T-4 Lodge has been a Big Sky tradition for
61 years. Co-owners David O’Connor and Chuck Schommer have a history with
Buck’s that long pre-dates their official partnership in the business in 2009.
Since then, they have stayed true to the establishment’s roadhouse roots while
continuing to elevate the standards of the guest experience. A rustic elegance
extends to the carefully conceived menu, the accommodations and the casual, yet
professional service, attracting tourists and locals alike.
As part of this ongoing series, O’Connor shared his thoughts
with EBS on the reasoning behind their success and longevity as a Big Sky small
business.
Explore Big Sky:
What has been the key to your success?
David O’Connor: Buck’s
has always been known for consistency and authenticity. We have been a
family-owned business—with one short gap—since our 1946 inception, and that
brings a certain warmth and home-like feeling for both our guests and
employees. Buck and Helen Knight had a very strong ethic of hospitality, and
that love of caring for travelers still permeates the business today. Buck’s
has always managed to attract employees who share these values, and those
people, over the years, have allowed Buck’s to grow with Big Sky.
One of our team’s agreed-upon core values is
“relationships matter”; with our guests, our employees and our vendors.
That basic idea was at the heart of Buck and Helen’s success, and we try our
best to let that drive our decision-making day to day.
EBS: What are the
biggest obstacles to operating a small business in Big Sky?
D.O.: Right now,
the highest hurdle facing most, if not all, businesses in Big Sky is staffing;
a challenge which is mostly driven by the dire scarcity of attainable workforce
housing. Chuck and I see many daily examples of how fortunate we are to have
the people around us that we do, but it grows more and more challenging every
season to find those people.
Seasonality also contributes to this challenge, as it often
is a detractor for career-minded individuals who might consider joining our
team. Not to mention the myriad financial obstacles that arise from being
seasonal.
EBS: How has the
business landscape changed since you started out?
D.O.: Buck’s has
two complimentary businesses: the hotel and the restaurant, and each has
evolved in different ways.
Big Sky, as a community, has been working hard to position
itself in a closer relationship to Yellowstone National Park, and that effort
is finally yielding a gradual reduction in the shoulder seasons for lodging. It
was not very long ago that all of May, most of June and the majority of the
fall were so slow that we closed outright. In the past few years we have seen
an exponential increase in Yellowstone visitors making Big Sky part of their
trip. The result is that the hotel is now (as of 2016) open 365 days a year,
which was a huge step for us. Also, Big Sky’s growth overall has allowed us to
diversify and even out our market segments, so we are less dependent on any one
kind of traveler. In the long run, this is the best insurance against a bad
snow year, fire year … becoming catastrophic.
Buck’s restaurant has always been very fortunate to have the
support of the Big Sky community at large, and we are incredibly grateful for
that every day. However, increasing competition is outpacing the growth of the
community right now. We are very confident this will even out, and relatively
shortly, but in the meantime the slices of the pie are smaller for all of us in
the restaurant business here.
The American restaurant industry as a whole has also
irrevocably changed in the past couple of decades. The interest in, and access
to, a wide variety of cuisine means we can really explore, along with our
guests, all sorts of cool things in food. We are foodie geeks at our core, and
it’s been tons of fun to be a part of the wave in this country powered by Food
TV, locavore-ism, health consciousness and the rise of artisanship. From
Chuck’s representation of Montana at the Beard Foundation in New York City in
2000 to the wide variety of tools and ingredients we have access to today,
there has been no better, no more fun time to be in the restaurant business.
EBS: What is it
about Big Sky that compels you to stick it out through the hard times?
D.O.: The people,
the people, the people. The nature of the Big Sky community, both for residents
and businesses, is really one of inclusivity. For the most part, when things
are challenging for us, they are challenging for all of us. We’ve seen
countless examples of the community pulling together in tough times, in
countless ways. That’s incredibly rare in any community, and that sense of
shared challenge and success across Big Sky is a huge lift when the chips are
down.
EBS: Why do you
think so many new businesses fold relatively quickly?
D.O.: The cash
management challenges posed by seasonality are a real killer. It’s tough for
many new business owners to wrap their mind around how they can be both
profitable and broke at the same time. It takes a few years under your belt to
get a sense of the rhythm of your business’s financial resources.
EBS: What advice
would you give to small business owners just starting out in Big Sky?
D.O.: Be grateful
for every customer that comes in the door and every employee that punches the
clock; and take every opportunity to let them know that you are. Keep your
commitments, be open when you say you will be and make a conscious effort to
stop talking and listen. If you wake up every day thinking “woe is me,” find
something else to do.
EBS: What’s the
best piece of business advice you’ve received?
D.O.: Mike
Scholz, who acquired Buck’s from the Knights and built Buck’s into what it is
today, taught us pretty much everything we know about owning and operating
Buck’s T-4. His mentorship has been a foundation in both of our lives. There
are so many valuable pieces of advice Mike has imparted over the years it’s
difficult to identify one as “best,” but one that is constantly on our minds is
that this business is won or lost on nickels and dimes. It is all too easy to
lose sight of the small stuff while we try to think of the big picture, and
losing track of those things, when taken in the aggregate, can be lethal.
Bucks T-4 Lodge – by
the numbers
• Staff: 25
full-time, year-round; 75 at peak staffing
• Years in
business: 61
• Longest
serving employee: Joe Mama Rogers
