Newest downtown restaurant has some familiar faces

Standing in the kitchen of his brand-new restaurant, Jason Corbridge said his life has come full circle.

“This is where I fell in love with food,” he said.

That was 15 years ago, when he was 21 and started working at George Henry’s Restaurant, a downtown landmark at North 30th Street and Fourth Avenue North.

George Henry’s is now Commons 1882, a partnership between Greg Oliphant, the general manager, and Corbridge and Henry Kennah, the two chefs who will run the kitchen.

Commons 1882 — so named because it was built as a country house in that year — had a soft opening Thursday and Friday, closed for the weekend and opened again Monday. The partners did a Facebook blast Tuesday, but before that they got the news out by word of mouth and Facebook messages to a few friends and fans.

Oliphant said the “very quiet opening” last week gave them “an opportunity to learn what we didn’t know about ourselves.” He said there was a marked improvement even from Thursday to Friday.

“Not that Thursday was bad,” Corbridge added. “But Friday was golden.”

Corbridge was best known for his tiny restaurant, Café DeCamp, which he ran for three and a half years before closing it in February 2013. He attracted a big following with his endlessly inventive dishes, for an evolving menu that regulars couldn’t wait to peruse.

He and Kennah have known each other for many years, Corbridge said, and 10 or 11 years ago they had some “serious differences. But over the past seven or eight years, we’ve become very good friends.”

Kennah has worked as a chef in Billings for 14 years, most recently at the downtown Jake’s restaurant, where he spent five years.

“We just know each other through food — similar tastes and interests,” Kennah said.

They had long talked about working together someday and are clearly enjoying it now. Kennah said they are “openly critical” of each other, challenging each other’s ideas and pushing each other, as Corbridge said, “out of our comfort zone.”

Asked how they clashed in the kitchen, what sorts of things they differed over, Kennah asked a question of his own: “What’s a good mashed potato?”

To answer that question, he said, you have to decide what kind of potato you want to use, whom you buy it from, what style you’ll use to cook it, whether you’ll use buttermilk or cream, whether you’ll prepare it with a mixing bowl or a food processor. Multiply that conversation by every dish, every ingredient, and then expand it to include the entire kitchen staff of nine.

“We included our whole staff in our development,” Corbridge said.

Yes, they are serious about food, and as committed to buying fresh and buying local as Corbridge ever was at Café DeCamp. He’s probably even more committed, Corbridge said, given how many opportunities to buy local have cropped up in the relatively short time since he closed DeCamp.

Oliphant got involved when mutual friends introduced him to Corbridge a couple of months after Café DeCamp closed. Oliphant was a partner in the Koinonia restaurant on the South Side in the 1980s and early 1990s and has worked as a food broker for 35 years.

Kennah was also brought into the mix, and the three of them looked at lots of concepts and locations before settling on George Henry’s, which had been vacant since 2009. Corbridge, who said he used to be afraid he’d have a heart attack trying to run Café DeCamp by himself, is finding the new arrangement much less stressful.

“It’s such a relief to know Greg’s out there and Henry and I are sharing duties back here,” he said, referring to the kitchen.

Oliphant will continue working as general manager, Corbridge said, but eventually he and Kennah want to own the restaurant themselves.

“Our intention is to buy this restaurant from Greg in five years,” he said.

Commons 1882 has the same general layout as George Henry’s, but it has been remodeled from top to bottom and now includes two full bars, one on the ground floor and one upstairs.

There are numerous microbrews on tap from around Billings and the state, a small wine menu and a selection of special cocktails, including a Black Walnut Old Fashioned and Adventurers of Huckleberry Gin.

The menu has some 25 items, counting lunch dishes, hors d’oeuvre and dinner entrees. The restaurant will be open only for lunch on Mondays, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, lunch will be served from 11 to 2, with hors d’oeuvres served starting at 3 and dinner from 5 to 9. It will be closed on Sunday.

There will be seating for about 130 people inside — upstairs, in the main dining room just inside the Fourth Avenue entrance and in the dining room near the downstairs bar on the east side of the building — and 32 seats on the outdoor patio. All indoor seating areas will be available at all times, Oliphant said.

The menu, which includes wine and beer suggestions with most dishes, is full of mouth-watering creations. On the hors d’oeuvre menu, a lamb terrine with almonds, Flathead cherries, chamomile, sweet potato, amaretto yogurt, dried apple and honeycomb is said to go well with an Exem Bordeaux or a Sweetgrass American Pale Ale.

Lunch? How about a Montana bison burger with sharp white cheddar and smoked Flathead cherry barbecue sauce, with a glass of 10 Spoon Flathead Cherry dry wine or an Imperial Red from the Great Northern Brewery in Whitefish?

And dinner? Perhaps a “broken ravioli of smoked tomato and forest mushroom” (ingredients too numerous to mention), accompanied by a Santa Ema Merlot Reserve or Abyss Bourbon barrel aged stout.

Commons 1882 employs 42 people so far, and everyone is getting used to the building, the menu and one another. Corbridge said the “long but fruitful” search for a new restaurant is starting to feel like a great success.

“I’m delighted to be pushing myself and to have a home,” he said. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted — not only to create a good environment for my guests, but for my employees.”

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