BUTTE - For 90 years, people in Butte have been bellying up to this iconic lunch counter at Matt’s diner. Unfortunately, it’s been closed for the past 6 years, but a young couple has decided to bring this burger joint and its tradition back to life.
"We just know that once this American burger counter ... if a place like this goes away, it doesn’t come back. And we really wanted to keep that history alive,” Daniel Lee said.
Daniel Lee and Lyndee Elmer are reopening Matt’s Place Drive-In, which had been operating on Placer Street since 1930. The Washington couple initially stopped in Butte last year to get a bite to eat at the historic diner.
The beloved Matt's Place Drive-In returns to Butte! See how new owners are bringing back this 94-year tradition.
“It was closed and boarded up when we pulled up, and for sale. And we were like, ‘Oh no, are we about to buy this thing?'” Lyndee Elmer said.
After some serious consideration and penny-pinching, they closed on the property in May. The couple had been operating a pop-up burger stand in Spokane and Coeur d'Alene called Everybody Burger, and they were hoping to open a brick-and-mortar restaurant. It seemed like fate finding this historic diner up for sale.
“This building has been here for 96 years. We’re taking it into his 100th year, obviously, here shortly. And, so, we’re taking it really into its next 100 years, I hope,” Elmer said.
Daniel’s grandmother was from Walkerville and often dined at Matt’s. That’s one reason they plan to keep the name and the menu the same.
“We have a few a little more out-there burgers on the menu that have been well-received in the past that we hope people in Butte will like as well,” Lee said.
They hope to be open by Halloween or early November.
