Sip-N-Dip Tiki Lounge

I loved this place; Piano Pat, mermaids, fun crowd, great service, friendly doorman, and culture. My score came out to be a 7.3. Unfortunately, the mai tai has a lot to be desired along with the blue Hawaiian, these were more like cruise ship drinks. So I asked for a pain killer or zombie, the bartender looked them up on her phone and said they couldn't do it. Had I given the drinks an 8 the rating would have jumped to a 8.6, but this place has a lot going on, so at this bar you don't need to focus on the drinks. Sip'n Dip sells an atmosphere, and experience ; with that they did not disappoint!!! I could easily be a regular here and I'm sure if I were they'd be MORE than happy to make a proper mai tai and have a couple other great tiki offerings. Overall this is a place was well worth the three hour detour and because of that we stayed right there at the lodge. One word CLEAN!!! The lodge is VERY OLD but I could eat off the tile floor. Don't expect the Hilton, but you can expect a great night sleep!!!

I loved this place; Piano Pat, mermaids, fun crowd, great service, friendly doorman, and culture. My score came out to be a 7.3. Unfortunately, the mai tai has a lot to be desired along with the blue Hawaiian, these were more like cruise ship drinks. So I asked for a pain killer or zombie, the bartender looked them up on her phone and said they couldn't do it. Had I given the drinks an 8 the rating would have jumped to a 8.6, but this place has a lot going on, so I'm not going on so at this bar you don't need to focus on the drinks. Sip'n Dip sells an atmosphere, and experience ; with that they did not disappoint!!! I could easily be a regular here and I'm sure if I were they'd be MORE than happy to make a proper mai tai and have a couple other great tiki offerings. Overall this is a place was well worth the three hour detour and because of that we stayed right there at the lodge. One word CLEAN!!! The lodge is VERY OLD but I could eat off the tile floor. Don't expect the Hilton, but you can expect a great night sleep!!!

The Enchanted Tiki Cowboy Bar...

Sip-N-Dip is a neat oddball, as a small little Tiki bar in an old motel in a small city in the middle of Montana. There is no real rational reason how and why it should exist. It does, though, and the world is a better place for it.

This bar is not a polished artifice of certified Tiki aesthetics, like something designed by a Disney Imagineer. It has evolved organically over its history, accumulating encrustations from different eras. It still has tabletops of its pre-Tiki nautical theme. It has a big old organ in the middle of it. It has mermaids. It has VLTs off to the side. It's in a motel that leaves complimentary rubber duckies in the rooms. It has a regular clientele of hipster kids and weathered cowboys.

The Sip-N-Dip appeals to my sense of the ironic and incongruous. I can't not be delighted by having to look over a bunch of cowboy hats to see a mermaid floating behind the bar. It also appeals to my preference for "Fantasy Tiki." Normal, standardized Tiki, cultured like a pearl, is fine and I wouldn't turn it down, but I tend to veer into the directions of either really authentic or really fake and fantastical. I want to either learn about real Polynesian cultures, or go to Disneyland. Sip-N-Dip's flotilla of mermaids (pod of mermaids? School of mermaids? Shoal of mermaids?) is right up the alley of the fantastical.

My wife and I stayed overnight at the O'Haire Motor Inn on our way down to Yellowstone, specifically because it housed the Sip-N-Dip. Staying on site is a good course of action if you're breezing through town. The locals kind of gave us the stink eye (pft, tourists!) but we did have a nice chat with another couple of out-of-towners.