PRINTThe hidden hitching post
James Maritz
Customers sit outside the Trailhead Barn and Grill on a Friday night and enjoy quiet scenery and cool weather. The bar is on the outskirts of the Rudolph Bennitt Conservation Area near Higbee.
July 3, 2008 | 12:00 a.m. CST
Far down a winding gravel road outside of Higbee, a green metal barn at the edge of the woods reverberates with the twang of country guitars and laughter. Anyone chancing upon the unfinished parking lot on a Saturday night might note the rows of cooling trucks and the horse-hitching post near the front door and mistake the place for a rowdy honky-tonk.
Less than a year ago, it might have been the truth. But things are different now, because where others saw a seedy, disreputable watering hole, one couple saw possibility.
Trailhead Barn and Grill is open from 4 p.m. until about 1 a.m. on Thursdays, and from noon until about 1 a.m. Friday through Sunday.
How To Get There
From Columbia, head north about 25 miles on US-63 N. Turn left at MO-B. Head straight on MO-B and follow the painted signs marked “Trailhead Barn and Grill.”
Patrons dance to the music of Dale Palmer and the Mystery Men. Trailhead is open ...
Chris Rodriguez puts together baskets of orders while Jane Rodriguez stands behind him at the ...
Jane and Chris chat between orders on a Friday night.
Dale Palmer, lead guitarist and vocalist for Dale Palmer and the Mystery Men, plays on ...
Inside the bar, the Mystery Men play while patrons converse and sip beer. Chris and ...
Welcome to the Trailhead Barn and Grill, a reformed dive bar where hospitality is the rule of the evening and ruffians are shown the door.
Rehabilitating the 40-by-84-foot corrugated metal barn wasn’t easy, say husband-and-wife owners Chris and Jane Rodriguez. Before they took the helm last August, the building housed a bar with a reputation for trouble and a run-down general store peddling a “hodgepodge of crap,”
Jane says.
In spite of the atmosphere, Jane liked it. She used to be a hairdresser in Columbia but had always dreamed of owning a bar, so when the place went up for sale, she jumped at the chance.
“It was my wife’s idea at first,” Chris says. He warmed to her vision, and they bought the place in August. “I threw care to the wind and shot in there with her, and it’s worked out and been a lot of fun,” he says. His years as a custom woodworker had prepared him well for the work he’d have to do on the barn.
“Chris has had to be a construction worker, a cook, a bouncer,” Jane says.
The pair has won customers over with a special blend of old-fashioned hospitality, musical entertainment and friendly joking that Jane likes to call “night care for adults.” Everyone who walks through the door is greeted, often by name.
The Trailhead is open Thursday through Sunday, and the couple runs the place by themselves. When the kitchen is open, Chris works the grill. He forms hamburger patties by hand
and cooks up thick, juicy slabs of steak while Jane chats with patrons, delivers orders and camps at the bar.
On any given evening, the bar’s mismatched furniture spills over with chatting customers. Bull horns hang above the doorways, and two pool tables stand in a far corner. A barber chair and a few rusty outdoor dining sets furnish the front porch.
The walls are littered with a ragtag collection of decorations. A large brown moth Jane found in the bar is pinned to the wall with a thumbtack. A tattered 48-star American flag on loan from a customer hangs nobly in one corner. Ancient bills of sale, old family portraits, pond traps and Jane’s grandpa’s shotgun all adorn the walls. The pastiche acts as a living tribute to history.
The bar’s new image has garnered praise from residents of nearby Higbee, and it’s fast become a popular gathering spot.
When customers discuss the unlikely transformation, the words friend and family slip in. Indeed, spending a Saturday night there feels a bit like sitting in the oversized living room of some distant and eccentric relatives.
Sometime after 9:30 p.m., an elderly woman with a cane shuffles in the front door and grins, and the pretty server (who no longer works there) rushes into the crowd while carrying a green plastic tray loaded with cans of Bud Light. The faint smells of cigarette smoke and pleasantly greasy onion rings float in waves through the damp summer air, and old and new friends greet one another.
A customer pauses at the bar during a lull in orders. “Did I leave my shirt here,” she asks Jane.
Standing beneath a motley collection of baseball caps, Jane brushes away a strand of hair, her eyes dancing. “Maybe,” she says. “If we didn’t sell it or anything.”
Higbee’s heyday
In the early 1900s, Higbee was a booming mining town with a population of about 2,000, says Carey Bankhead, a Higbee historian. When the coal mines closed, residents drifted away, and by the time the Rodriguezes arrived, the population had dropped to 653. Most bars and shops had closed, and a VFW hall was the only gathering spot left.
Bert Thornhill, who has lived in Higbee all 42 years of his life, has witnessed the shrink firsthand. Like other community members, Bert used to have to drive to Moberly when he wanted a ruckus-free night out. Perched atop a bar stool and nursing a sweating can of Bud Light, he marvels at how the bar has changed since the Rodriguezes took over. “It used to be a lot rougher,” Bert says.
Now he visits four times a week for a T-bone steak, cold beer and good company. “I’ve been coming out for six months, and I ain’t seen so much as an argument,” he says. “We don’t go to drink beer and fight; we go to have fun.”
A laminated white menu lists a basic selection of beers. For now, the Rodriguezes happily avoid hard liquor. “Whiskey makes you pissy,” Jane says, and she credits the bar’s friendly vibe in part to the absence of hard alcohol.
A second menu offers classic grill fare, including burgers, onion rings and grilled-cheese sandwiches. But the house special, a rib-eye steak with potatoes and beans, has been the biggest hit.
Running the place is as much a labor of love as it is a money-making venture, say the Rodriguezes. Although beer distributors make the drive out to Higbee, stocking the kitchen requires weekly 40-mile excursions to Columbia for food and supplies.
Musical sense
Live music forms the cornerstone of the bar’s atmosphere, and on the weekend at 9 p.m., the grill shuts down and the bands start up.
The Rodriguezes haven’t had any trouble booking bands in spite of the bar’s remote location. “They make the trek from Columbia, Harrisburg, Jefferson City,” Chris says. Every weekend night features a different blues or country band. Regular favorites include Dale Palmer and the Mystery Men, Stroker Ace and Dirt Row. Sunday evenings are reserved for jam sessions.
“The bands love coming back here because it’s like no other place they’ve got to play,” Chris says. “It’s a one-of-a-kind place out in the middle of nowhere.”
But Jane credits these artists’ loyalty to her husband’s ability to anticipate their wants and needs. “He caters to them, feeds them,” Jane says. “He knows how he likes to be treated, and that’s how he treats them.” Chris often sits in on sets with bands.
There is lots to like about playing the Trailhead, agrees Dale Palmer of Dale Palmer and the Mystery Men, a Columbia group that plays vintage country music –– or as drummer Joe Aguirre likes to put it, “music by the dead and nearly dead.”
As they dine on complimentary baskets of burgers and fries before a show, band members discuss Trailhead’s appeal. Joe discovered the spot while exploring the conservation area. “I was driving and ended up in the parking lot,” he says. He was intrigued, and when the band discovered the venue on Comomusic.com, they booked a show.
The first time around, the small but energetic crowd impressed the Mystery Men. “We got ’em shaking,” Dale says.
A little piece of heaven
The bar doesn’t mark the start of a trail as its name might suggest. However, it does sit 30 feet from the Rudolph Bennitt Conservation Area in Randolph County, a 3,515-acre parcel of forested terrain that boasts a lake, camping facilities and an extensive network of trails for hikers, bikers and horseback riders.
The Rodriguezes have taken care to keep the surrounding area pristine. On Mondays, they patrol roads and pick up any trash left behind.
So far, their efforts have earned the blessing of the conservation area’s trail host, Brenda Reed. “They keep it picked up,” Brenda says as she sidles up to the bar and greets some friends. “There’s a big benefit to having it here.”
Brenda’s duties as trail host include riding the conservation area trails 16 times a year to check for problems and answer visitors’ questions, and she’ll often stop by Trailhead afterward. “It’s handy having the place out here in the middle of nowhere,” she says. “When you’re out riding, you can tie up your horse, come in and have a nice cold Pepsi or iced tea.”
Although their closest neighbor is just a quarter-mile away, the Rodriguezes haven’t heard any complaints, and they’ve also stayed on the good side of the law. “They used to have to break up fights all the time,” Jane says. “Now the sheriffs and deputies hang out here.”
The bar’s location means visitors from nearby campsites trickle in and contribute to the group of regulars who make the trek from Fayette, Centralia, Harrisburg and Madison. Chris estimates that up to 80 percent of the 50 to 250 nightly customers are not from Higbee.
“Every weekend, business gets better,” Jane says, and she expects a continued boost this summer as campers and horseback riders show up and add their numbers to the growing crowd.
Although no one can predict how the surrounding conservation area will ultimately be changed by the increased traffic, the Rodriguezes are determined to meet any challenges head-on.
They hope one day their little bar in the woods will earn them a name all around mid-Missouri. In the meantime, there are steaks to serve, bands to book and customers to entice. Plans for a real stage are in the works, and Chris continues to put finishing touches on the building.
“I love the outdoors and wilderness,” Chris says. “Here I am in a 3,500-acre place that I only have to mow two acres of. And nothing will get built
around me.”
On a night like Saturday, it’s easy to understand why the idea is appealing. The Mystery Men have switched to a slow song, and women wearing cocktail dresses and men in cowboy hats make their way onto the cement floor.
When the last customers drift out the door, there’ll be no long trek home for Chris and Jane. They’ll simply clean up, step over the recycling piled outside the rear door and climb the back stairs to their loft apartment. The large low-lit studio is adorned with furniture Chris built himself, and it opens up to a balcony that overlooks the inside of the bar.
But for now the front doors stand open, and the music plays on. Outside, the sky threatens rain. Moths dance beneath the porch lights, and even further out, past the emptying parking lot, fireflies flash like tiny beacons in the big country night and point the way home.
A wonderful article that perfectly captures the authentically homegrown ambiance of Trailhead. Yay Erin!!!
Posted by Emily Sussman on Jul 6, 2008 at 11:17 a.m. (Report Comment)
Nice article but alot of non-truth in it. I have lived in this area for 20 years and we as the local people would like our say.
We do not want another "Bar" in the area that draws people out here to leave their trash along the roads and endanger our lives by "drunk drivers". I myself am glad the local Law Enforcement is giving out DWI"s.
They have brought more drug dealings and drunks to the local Counties than we care to deal with. So where is our story?
The sooner they go under the better.
God is not welcome in their building!
Posted by Patricia Palozola on Jul 28, 2008 at 5:55 a.m. (Report Comment)