Fluffy, perfect pizza crust. This is the first thing that comes to mind when I hear the words “MacKenzie River Pizza.” Today, this restaurant is much more than a pizza place, but when the first and original location of MacKenzie River opened at 232 East Main Street in Bozeman in 1993, it quickly became known as a favorite spot among locals for delicious pizza, cheesy breadsticks with marinara dipping sauce (“lodgepoles”), and salads topped with the world’s best house-made salad dressing. 

When it opened, I was in high school, and everyone I knew loved it there. We’d go for a random night out, or after a choir concert or game, or we’d order delivery so that we could watch my hunky neighbor, Phillip Devitt, drive up in his red 1986 Ford Escort and personally hand us our lodgepoles.

A lot has changed for MacKenzie River since 1993 – it can be found in eight states, with 13 locations in Montana. But its food and atmosphere remain beautifully in place, after 32 years. I sat down with Allison Collins, MacKenzie River’s Director of Sustainability (and second-longest employee on payroll), and quizzed her about everything, trying not to think about cheese pizza.

Katie Thomas: How was MacKenzie River Pizza conceptualized?

Allison Collins: The name comes from the MacKenzie-style drift boat that hangs in all our locations. Flyfishing from a MacKenzie drift boat has always been a big draw for visitors to the Bozeman area.

KT: How many MacKenzie River Pizza locations are there?

AC: There are 13 Montana locations: two in Missoula, two in Billings, the Bozeman and Belgrade locations, Helena, Great Falls, north and south Kalispell, Whitefish, Polson, and, for the third year now, we’re running a summer location in Woods Bay, which is on Flathead Lake in Bigfork.

There are three locations in Idaho, one in Washington, two in Nevada, two in South Dakota, one in North Dakota, two in Ohio, and one in Kentucky. But this is the original store right here.

KT: And when did you start here?

AC: I started in 1997, as a kitchen employee, in prep. I worked my way up from prep kitchen to general manager. I ran that little shop on 19th as a general manager – it was a small team, and a good learning experience. And then I came back here, and was here about 12 to 14 years as the general manager. Then I became the Director of Sustainability, which is what I do today.

KT: Tell us more about that.

AC: We do sustainable initiatives like reduce, reuse, recycle. Straws by request. We’ve transitioned away from the toothpicks wrapped individually in plastic, and the mints. I know people love the mints, but they were individually wrapped too, and they created plastic everywhere. It’s about changing habits. We’ve measured water usage in the past, and now we’re measuring energy usage – we’ve partnered with a company to help us reduce it.

We’ve won a lot of EcoStar awards – that’s an MSU Extension award. I apply for that every year. It wins us a $500 grant, which I used at our Helena location last year to improve energy efficiency in the utility room.

KT: What would you like people to experience when they walk through your doors?

AC: We want them to experience a family friendly atmosphere: casual, professional, upbeat, rockin’ to the music, smiling, and filling people with really good-looking, quality plates of food. And, making sure that they feel like it’s their time off from their day, that we’re going to take care of them – that they don’t need to worry when they come and visit us. We got it. It’s your time to have off, and we want you to enjoy the occasion of going out for a meal.

KT: What would you say makes MacKenzie River unique in the Bozeman food scene?

AC: We cook our food with love, with fresh, quality ingredients, and serve it with a friendly smile. We hold true to the recipes we started with, and we continue to evolve off of those. We celebrate the culinary uniqueness of Montana, with huckleberries and bison meat on our seasonal menu.

KT: How do you use the bison?

AC: We have a bison burger, bison chili, and bison tacos.

KT: What menu item do regulars keep coming back for?

AC: They come back for the Rancher Pizza, which is pepperoni, ground beef and bacon, tomatoes, onions, and green peppers. A close second would be our Willow Creek sandwich, which is turkey, bacon, avocado, spinach, and tomato. These are original recipes. And our Cobb salad. Our salads are made fresh; we chop the lettuce every day, and we make our own salad dressings for some of them. We’re famous for our house dressing, which you can buy by the pint at all our locations. So that just really makes the house salad, with its grape nuts and pears.

Cheesy lodgepoles too, of course. That’s what gets the kids in. These days the kids get to choose restaurants, so thank goodness we have lodgepoles, because that’s all they ever want. We also just launched our summer menu, so folks should definitely come check that out.

KT: Do you personally have a favorite menu item?

AC: My favorite menu item is the Italian chicken sandwich. It’s got pesto mayo and a balsamic fig vinaigrette with provolone cheese, seasoned chicken, tomatoes, and avocado. It’s so good. And it’s cooked on the panini press. Oh, it’s so good.

KT: Do you still offer delivery?

AC: Yes, we offer online delivery through DoorDash. We used to employ our own delivery drivers back in the day, but it became hard to staff. You can always call us too, to place a pickup order. We’ll always answer the phone.

KT: How did COVID affect your business?

AC: We served a lot of food. We felt our community’s love. It was challenging. We were essential workers who worked through those challenges. We had great leadership to help navigate us, and we are so glad to be a stronger restaurant group on the other side of it. So I think it made us better – not that we needed to be better. But it did make us better with things like procedures in place, communication, follow-through and that kind of stuff. We survived it.

KT: Tell us about the remodel.

AC: It was just over a year ago. We closed in February 2024, and reopened in May. It was really fast. Martel did the work, and they did a great job. We had a furniture sale, with a portion of the proceeds going to the Gallatin Valley Food Bank in an effort to give back to the community. I was able to sell all the furniture from downstairs. Right after we closed, there was a line out the door. KBZK news came and did a piece about it. It was crazy, but wonderful – it was just people buying their memories. The story by KBZK featured this couple that had their first date here, at this certain table, and now they’re married, and always had dates at that table. The husband was waiting in line to come and get the table.

KT: What do you enjoy most about being part of the Bozeman community?

AC: I love our community because it’s dynamic. It’s always evolving. It’s healthy. We have a lot of sunshine, opportunity, happy and healthy people. Our restaurant is a staple in the Bozeman community, and I appreciate everyone for allowing us that position in their lives. We just love the support we get, and the trust that the community has in us. And it’s fun being a gateway town to Yellowstone too.

KT: Do you have any special events coming up?

AC: We participate in any of the downtown Bozeman events. So if there’s an opportunity for us to sell pizza at it, we try to partake in it. Like the Bite of Bozeman, Music on Main, the car show. We’re kind of a hub off of Sweet Pea and Run to the Pub, so we try to open our garage doors so everyone feels welcome to come on down. Now we have the garage doors open most of the time, since it’s summer. If it rains, we’re here for you. If you need shade, we’re here for you.

KT: Anything else you’d like readers to know about MacKenzie River?

AC: We are open! There’s some construction going on around us, so it might be hard to see from the street if you’re driving by, but please come on in.

We have a catering menu. For that, you can order online, or you can call us.

Our mottos are basically “Work hard, play hard” and “Do what you do and do it well” – in both life and work. Investing in our community and our staff is who we are at the core. A lot of people running restaurants on Main Street started here back in the day. We like to say, if you want to be a local, you’ve got to work at MacKenzie.

And after this conversation, I wish I had. It would have been a great job for my high school self, who was walking to Little Caesar’s for breadsticks at lunch before MacKenzie River was born and saved the day. Fortunately, we can all be good customers today, supporting a local business that cares about the community and the environment, while eating some of the best food Bozeman has to offer.