Kitchen Dwellers, Lil' Smokies, Whitewater Ramble

The new Top Hat is, well, shiny. Soft lights gleam off polished wooden and metal surfaces in every corner of the now-spacious building. At an open house held for musicians on Friday, March 8, select Missoulians got their first look at the longtime Front Street music venue and bar, which closed in November for renovations. As Portland band Redwood Son played two sets of roots-rock, dozens of musicians mingled and chatted, grabbing complimentary beer from an ice-filled tub as servers offered platters of tapas. Even the two bouncers smiled at people walking in. "It kinda had that dive bar feeling before," says Sean Burress, a member of Polson's reggae-influenced band Off in the Woods. "Now I feel classier just being here." The revamped Top Hat is the project of Montana businessman Nick Checota, who bought it from Nicole Garr.
She took over the bar after the death of her father, longtime owner Steve Garr, in 2009. Checota says he intends for the space to become one of the premier venues in the Northwest, and one of the top 40 venues in the nation. While still very much recognizable as the Top Hat, it's certainly new and improved: Gone is the dividing wall that created a bottleneck at the front door, and the bathrooms are now in the rear hallway—two renovations that vastly opened up the room. Gone, too, are many of the hallmarks of a well-worn place for drinking and dancing, like the years of accumulated décor. Band graffiti has been painted over in the green room, which now sports leather couches. Checota's $700,000 renovation of the venue—technically two conjoined buildings, dating from the 1880s—included replacing the roofs and reinforcing the structural integrity.
He's especially proud of the work to improve the acoustics. Previously, the dividing wall in the middle of the room would echo sound back, making live music tinny and warped, he says. New sound-absorbent material on the ceiling and more open space makes for consistent acoustics and a better experience for the musicians on stage, he says. Crowd capacity is now at nearly 600 people. "There's no other room in town, of our size, that really has the level of quality sound we have,"Checota says. The building still smells slightly of fresh paint, but several shows and a grand opening event are already booked. Checota says nearly 150 musicians at the open house filled out surveys saying they'd like to play the venue. Returning patrons will find that the bar operations aren't significantly different.