Pine Creek Lodge in Montana’s Paradise Valley is a rustic, mom-and-pop music venue. Open year-round, it’s a beloved gathering place in Yellowstone Country, hosting intimate beer garden shows and lively summer concerts under the wide, Montana sky. Owner Chip Hurt, reflects on the spirit behind the lodge and the lasting impact it leaves on both performers and guests.

When people first pull into Pine Creek Lodge, I think they are a little surprised. You’re just north of the Yellowstone Park entrance, tucked in this wide-open Montana valley outside Livingston, with mountains all around and Pine Creek through. It’s the kind of place that feels a little removed from everything else, in the best possible way. We’ve got cabins, glamping tents, space to car camp, and an outdoor stage that looks like it belongs right where it is.

This place goes way back. Pine Creek Lodge was built in 1946 as a gas station and general store on the main road into Yellowstone. Over time, it turned into cabins and casual live music. In the 1960s and 70s, it became a creative retreat for a group known as the Montana Gang, writers, painters, and artists who spent real time here together. People like Richard Brautigan, Tom McGuane, Russell Chatham, and Jim Harrison, who lived on the property and is said to have written Legends of the Fall here. It was a social place, a place to come together and get out of your own head.

That spirit still drives everything we do. When I started bringing shows here about fifteen years ago, I kept asking myself, “would I want to go to a concert at this place?” I wanted it to feel like coming to a concert in your uncle’s backyard. When I’m choosing artists, the main question I ask is, “is this show going to be fun?” Sometimes that matters more to me than anything else. I want it to feel like a party, like something people genuinely want to be a part of.

Over the years we’ve had more than forty Grammy Award-winning and nominated artists play here, including Bob Weir and John Mayer, Billy Strings, Bruce Hornsby, and Ryan Bingham. Billy Strings played here once for about seventy-five people, and years later sold the place out in seconds. Even with a thousand people, it still feels intimate, you’re standing just a few feet from the music.

If that sounds like your kind of night, come join us. Head to pinecreeklodge.com to see what’s coming up and to book a cabin or a tent. We’d love for you to be a part of it.