The Spokane Cafe

Spokane Cafe, 1939; Arthur Rothstein; Library of Congress

The Spokane Cafe was a perambulator. Opened by brothers Sam and John Kenoffel in 1901, it operated from various spots along Main Street over the first 30 years of the 20th century. You would find it at 111 S. Main in 1912. The first mention of it in the Butte papers was a sale listing from that year, and it remained until 1918. By June of 1919, it had relocated north to 17 South Main. And it wandered from there.

Relocation notice; Butte Miner; March, 1919

Candlelight dining, from a bucket

The restaurant boomed from 1919 through 1923. It identified with the Butte miners, and specialized in providing lunch buckets. Spokane buckets were popular for their high quality and low price.

Miners lunch break; 1905

After his shift, the miner dropped off his bucket at the Spokane. The restaurant washed and steam sterilized the bucket. It was then loaded up with “good juicy wholesome meats in sandwiches and the very best kind of pies and cake and fruit.” When it was picked up in the morning, the miner paid $0.30 for the ready to go bucket. Quick, efficient, cheap and, by all accounts, pretty tasty.

The way the lunch bucket worked was a product of long Cornish evolution. The bucket bottom held a miner’s coffee. A tray which fit snug over the coffee held a pasty or sandwich, and a second tray above that contained pie or cake. A lid, often with a cup, fit on top to hold it all together. In the tunnels, a miner would light his candle and suspend the bucket above it, to keep the coffee warm until lunch.

Labor Bulletin; December 30, 1919

Most of the Spokane’s advertising was through the labor and union associated newspapers of Butte; the Daily Miner and Labor Bulletin. Sam’s loyalties were clear, and he consistently refused to prepare a lunch bucked for any strikebreaker. Sympathies for the working man extended to easy terms for takeaway meals.

Butte Miner June 30,1918

Booths for ladies, rooms for gents

The cafe was profitable enough that in 1921, it replaced its single mammoth counter with a smaller counter with stools, and a long row of booths opposite. Booths were considered essential for female clientele, adding some buffer from the uninhibited male hassle up at the bar. The nearby Creamery Cafe heralded “Booths For Ladies” on a large sign painted on its exterior brick wall.

17 South Main also housed rental rooms upstairs from the cafe. The Kenoffels boasted of their cleanliness, hot and cold water and steam heat for as little as $3.00 per week.

Labor Bulletin; October 14,1920

For those not part of the daily bucket brigade, what was dining-in like at the Spokane Cafe? Well, in 1921, here is a representative $0.35 (choice of menu) daily lunch menu:

  • Soup
    • Cream of Chicken
    • Boiled Fried Ox Tongue with New Spinach
  • Entrees
  • Fresh Salmon Cutlets with Tomato Sauce
  • Lamb Fricassee with Garden Peas
  • Fresh Fried Hog with Hominy
  • Roasts
  • Prime Ribs of Beef au jus
  • Sliced Pineapple
  • Mashed Potatoes
  • Tea or Coffee

Slide on down to the Spokane Cafe

Built around its own mines on a fairly steep slope, uptown Butte has always been referred to as two communities; that of the “hill” and downhill on the “flats.” The Spokane Cafe was unapologetically hill, with the odd mishaps a slope can bring. There were a number of vehicles with dubious brakes that couldn’t stay still. This, in 1922:

Butte Miner; May 28,1922
123 North Main Street on the downslope

A third move

Demonstrating both its robust business and poor timing, the Spokane Cafe moved to a larger fancier building at 123 North Main in July of 1929. This was the result of the Metals Bank’s decision to tear down 17 South Main, adjacent to the bank, and expand its operating space south. The bank cancelled these plans when the Great Depression hit. The Spokane Cafe in its new digs remained affordable and popular. 

Another note on 123 North Main. Beginning in 1905, the upstairs portion of the building housed the Women’s Protective Union, which organized hotel and restaurant employees. It was the nation’s first union for women, begun in 1893 so that women would not be “behind their brothers in demanding their rights.” 

The Kenoffel brothers were both born in England. John left Butte in 1934 and lived in Oregon and Los Angeles, until his death in 1955. Along with brother Sam, he ran the Spokane until 1929 and opened Kenoffel’s Cafe Beautiful (later K Cafe) at 43 West Park Street in 1923.

Interior of Kenoffel’s. Butte Silver Bow Archives

A place for the ladies

Kenoffel’s introduced a whole new elegant outlook. It’s a long way from miners buckets to peacock feathers, but it’s funny what a little time and ambition will do. 

Women were gaining influence, civilizing the ‘wide open town,’ and introducing some decorum to uptown. It’s not difficult to imagine ladies from the WPU upstairs, or those attending the Butte Business College across the street to take a meal at the Cafe Beautiful.

Full page ad; Butte Daily Post; June 7, 1923
Kenoffel’s in 1923; Butte Silver Bow Archives

After John left, Sam ran Kenoffel’s, then the K Cafe through the Great Depression. As late as 1936, he and new partner Neil Arkels continued putting up lunches for the hungry miners of Butte.

Montana Standard; September 5, 1936

Restaurants play out much like mines

After over four decades in the restaurant business, Sam made the decision to move with his family to Burbank, California in 1943. With that, the Spokane Cafe, now at 30 South Main went on the block. It failed to sell as a going concern, so fixtures, even plates and silverware were offered for piecemeal sale. Sam Kenoffel died in 1971 at the age of 88. 

To characterize the Kenoffel brothers, they were their work, and that work was well appreciated by the city. The Butte Miner of September 9, 1923 provided a tidy summary of both men:

Sam Kenoffel is often referred to by his brother John as “the man of finance,” for it is he who has figured and planned the buying of foodstuffs on a basis that has made possible a remarkable service in remarkable food at ordinary prices.

John Kenoffel is king of the people’s appetites. His menus, his supervision, his training of the efficient help has added much to the enviable reputation that Kenoffel Brothers enjoy as premier restauranteurs.

It’s hard for a Butte person to read about the Kenoffel brothers without wondering which one was nicknamed “Awful.” The answer appears in the next essay: https://lafayettesquarearchives.com/?p=4003

Resources

Various stories came from the Montana Standard, Butte Daily Post, Labor Bulletin, and Butte Miner newspapers.

Ellen Baumler was a resourceful Montana historian who provided what I know of lunch bucket dynamics. She was an interpretive historian with the Montana Historical Society, and hosted a good blog, Montana Moments. http://ellenbaumler.blogspot.com/2013/04/a-miners-lunch.html

Kenoffel’s labor union loyalty from Copper Camp; Montana Writers Project; 1943; p.252

Recent photo of 123 North Main from Butte-Anaconda National Historic Landmark District. An invaluable site for specific address information on historic structures. http://butte-anacondanhld.blogspot.com/2013/03/123-125-north-main-street.html

A good history of the Womens Protective Union in Butte is given by Carson Ruscheinsky of the Butte Silver Bow Archives at https://buttearchives.org/the-womens-protective-union/

Author: Mike

Background in biology but fixated on history, with volunteer stints at MO Historical Society and MO State Archives. Also runs the Lafayette Square Archives at lafayettesquare.org/archives. Always curious about what lies beneath the surface of St Louis history.

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