Ed Kemmick/Last Best News
Signs in the windows of Marcasa Clothing at 100 N. Broadway announced Tuesday that the store will be closing. Big Dipper Ice Cream of Missoula plans to open a Billings store in the space this winter.
Marcasa is out and the Big Dipper is in.
Marcasa Clothing, the popular upscale clothier on the northwest corner of First Avenue North and North Broadway in downtown Billings, was closed Tuesday, with signs in the window announcing a going-out-business sale that will start Wednesday.
That space will soon be occupied by Big Dipper Ice Cream, a wildly successful Missoula business that hopes to open a Billings outlet by late February.
“They are going to be such a great addition to the downtown,” Marcasa owner Jeremiah Young said of Big Dipper. “It’s something that will be an anchor for the downtown, just as Marcasa has been.”
As for closing Marcasa, which has been at 100 N. Broadway for nine years, Young said, “We just sort of felt the time was right to liberate some time and work on some new passions.”
He announced the closing in an email blast to customers and friends Tuesday morning, along with the signs in the store windows.
Young is also the creative director and owner of Kibler & Kirch, an interior design studio and furniture store in Red Lodge. He is building a new design studio on the second floor of the Stapleton Building, just above the Marcasa store.
He also hopes to revive the Rocke Gear brand of clothing that he bought from Chuck Barthuly years ago. That store, which will feature clothing made in America of American-grown cotton, will be in the space just north of the Big Dipper.
Young said he reached out to the owners of Big Dipper a year ago, when he heard they wanted to open a store in downtown Billings.
As we reported in July, the Billings store will be jointly owned by Big Dipper founder Charlie Beaton and Bryan and Sarah Hickey. The store will be run by Lia Munson, who manages Coneboy, Big Dipper’s ice cream truck in Missoula.
Ed Kemmick/Last Best News
Things were jumping when Last Best News visited the Big Dipper in Missoula this summer.
Big Dipper Ice Cream was founded by Beaton in 1995. The walk-up ice cream parlor is located at 631 S. Higgins, a few blocks south of the Clark Fork River. Bryan Hickey is the general manager of the Missoula store and he and Beaton teamed up to launch the ice cream truck more than four years ago. There is also a Big Dipper franchise in Helena.
The Missoula Big Dipper makes all its own ice cream and has 16 flavors that are always on the menu, and it often experiments with special and seasonal offerings.
Depending on what happens during the city permitting process, Hickey said, the Big Dipper will open downtown sometime between Valentine’s Day and St. Patrick’s Day.
“Our current timeline puts the opening the weekend after Valentine’s Day,” he said.
Because the construction will take place in the off-season, he said, he’s hoping the contractor “can knock it out pretty fast.”
The store will employ 10-15 people at first, and as many as 25-30 in the summer, he said. Among the workers they’ll be looking for is an ice-cream maker who can train at the Missoula store for a while before the opening here.
People looking for work can leave a message on the Big Dipper Facebook page or send queries to info@bigdippericecream.com.
