Driving across the Saint Mary’s Canal into Babb, the skyline looks different. For the first time in decades, the Cattle Baron Supper Club is missing.
The beloved restaurant burned down on January 14, 2026, leaving behind charred debris and a hole in the heart of the small community. One month later, owners Bob and Charlene Burns say they’re ready to rebuild and continue a family legacy in Babb that dates back more than a century.
Brianna Juneau talks with Bob and Charlene - watch:
Bob Burns’ roots in the area run deep. His great-grandparents were among the first homesteaders in Babb.
“His grandmother’s mother and Henry came here. There wasn’t anybody in Babb living,” Charlene Burns explained. “Our people would come and gather in the summer and camp here in the summer so, they were the only ones occupying the area. So, his family were the first actual homesteaders here.”
In the early 1900s, Bob’s grandmother May built the original Babb Bar and a motel. In the 1970s, Bob bought the bar from his parents and later built the Cattle Baron Supper Club.
He and Charlene opened on the old Babb Bar side on Valentine’s Day in 1996.
“We actually started on the old side, on kind of the Babb Bar side. And we opened on Valentine’s Day in 1996 and it got popular really fast,” Charlene said. “Twenty-eight years of happy customers.”
The January fire brought that chapter to an abrupt end.
“That was the worst black smoke to ever see,” Bob said. “You couldn’t see and you couldn’t breathe. And so just getting out of there was a blessing. Nobody got hurt.”
The family did not have insurance on the building.
“We didn’t have any insurance, so we took a pretty good hit,” Bob said.
Since then, their daughter created a GoFundMe campaign that has raised more than $35,000 to help the family begin again.
“It’s so humbling that a lot of people that have come and donated,” Charlene said.
Bob added, “I was just flabbergasted at the kindness that people showed, from all over the country. They sent us stories, they sent pictures.”
While the loss of the building has been difficult, Charlene says what hurts most is the history that went with it.
“Our museum, our personal museum. That’s the part we lost,” she said. “Every day we think of something that we lost.”
The restaurant featured a timeline along its walls that told the story of the Blackfeet people.
“We did the timeline story that went around the whole building and it told all of the major events of the Blackfeet people,” Charlene said. “That’s the part that’s the hardest for me, that we lost. Although, I’m still telling the story right now. So that will go into the new building because our kids all know those stories too.”
Despite the devastation, the Burns family already has plans drawn up for a new Cattle Baron Supper Club.
The new structure will be more modern and include motel rooms built onto the side, a nod to Bob’s grandmother’s original vision.
“Hopefully we’re going to build that middle part out of tin just because of all the fires Bob was talking about,” Charlene said. “This time, we’re going to build something that can’t burn up.”
Their children and grandchildren plan to take over day-to-day operations, while Bob and Charlene help guide the rebuild.
“This next story, it’s like we’re transferring it over to them and guiding them at the same time and seeing what they’re going to create on that same piece of land,” Charlene said.
Bob says he’s learning to look forward rather than back.
“It ain’t much sense in looking back,” he said. “You just got to look forward and keep on trying and keep on working, so we’re planning on rebuilding.”
For a family whose history in Babb spans generations and who has rebuilt before, this next chapter is already underway.
“I guess like my grandmother, I just don’t have the quit in me,” Bob said. “Got to start again. Ain’t the first time I started over. But I think that’s going to be the last.”
