Standing Strong on 2 Feet

creating unique cuisine & community in the heart of Red Lodge

Kat Porco is sitting on one of the front couches of her restaurant, One Legged Magpie, on the main drag in Red Lodge. Sunlight streams in behind her, giving her an angelic appearance. While she speaks, the brightness continually energizes and inspires her. She talks fast, trying to keep up with her rapid thoughts. Her words are filled with reflection and introspection.

These days, Kat is standing solidly on her two feet. With her husband, Mike, the venture into their restaurant, bar, and event space named after an injured bird proved to be a journey of renewal and revival. The couple purchased the iconic Bull ‘n Bear Saloon, Casino, Restaurant and Ballroom in 2021, hoping to refurbish and reinvent the old watering hole.

The name One Legged Magpie came during the Covid pandemic when the Porcos gathered with friends at Pride Park for “happy hour” with a list of potential names for their new restaurant. Just after meeting up with their friends, an unkempt and disheveled bird with one leg swooped down upon them. Its determination to move about with one missing leg, navigating in the world with “such sinew, grit and persistence,” inspired the Porcos.

At the beginning of each day, Kat seeks balance for her mind, body and soul. “I do yoga first thing in the morning, the most grounded time of the day,” followed by a walk. “After the walk I am motivated and ready to take on the day,” she says.

“She’s probably one of the most thoughtful people I know,” Mike says. “She really cares about people. She genuinely wants to help people, and that drives her. She sees the best in people.”

For her part, Kat says it’s important to “create all the tools for supporting my nervous system.” She says it’s only in creating inner peace and balance that she gains strength to help others, especially when challenges arise.

Over the years, her attention has focused on her oldest child, Quinn, who was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis (CF), a genetic disorder that results in a faulty protein that affects the body’s cells, tissues and glands that make mucus and sweat. With the biggest cystic fibrosis center in the state of Montana in Billings, the Porcos knew they needed the institution’s medical support, so they moved from New York to Red Lodge to be near care in 2011.

While making sure Quinn received the proper treatment, Kat started her own advocacy efforts. She put her bachelor’s degree in social work and her master’s in health communications to work while also seeking more education. She completed training, receiving certifications as an integrative health coach, health and wellness coach, and diabetes educator. She and Mike, who has a pulmonary rehabilitation background, founded the Attain Health Foundation, established to create a sense of community among those affected by CF.

The couple offered a 12-week program that educated and empowered individuals with cystic fibrosis-related diabetes (CFRD) to understand their blood sugars and how to manage them.

Although helping others gave Kat satisfaction and peace, she was tormented. Seeking help for her child often meant treatment that was traumatic or uncomfortable. “I was the bad guy,” she says. “I felt like I was one of the people causing trauma.”

She turned to alcohol. “I was using alcohol to cover up the pain and fear of living with a child that was constantly dying,” Kat says.

When the Bull ‘n Bear came up for sale, Kat says, the process of buying the bar “brought me to that place where owning a bar offered a mirror into my own life.”

The Porcos wanted to start a restaurant, Kay says, because “we loved what Joanie Swords did at Harper and Madison in Billings and we wanted to figure out if there was a way to create a similar ambiance in Red Lodge as a bar, restaurant and a community space.”

“We wanted to create a community first, a place to make everyone feel invited, a place to feel like it was an extension of home,” she says. The Porcos wanted to pursue their passion for food along with establishing a place where people could find safe harbor and connect with others.

With her own personal struggles, she says, “I wondered how I could walk into this place. I was terrified of being a promoter of that lifestyle. We had always dreamed of having a healing place, not a bar.” Already people are gathering for book clubs and celebrations.

In her journey to stay sober, Kat became a certified health, wellness and sobriety coach. She began counseling healthcare professionals, helping them to better negotiate the demands in their lives to achieve a more balanced life with less stress and more personal fulfillment. She concentrates on “gray area drinking” that encompasses problematic drinking behaviors that fall between social drinking and alcoholism. Gray area drinking may be harder to treat since it may be not obvious to those around the drinker.

At One Legged Magpie, a Soberbird, a zero-proof drink menu offers cocktails made with non-alcoholic botanicals, bitters and other flavorings combined with alcohol-free spirits, along with alcohol-free beers and wines. The option is provided “because evening community should be inclusive to all, no matter what is in your cup,” she says.

Recently hired executive chef Charles Vincent cooks up food using local ingredients of the season. The menu rotates often, and on occasion diners can experience flavors from Vincent’s childhood home in Mandeville, near New Orleans, and his experiences cooking in the kitchens of Emeril Lagasse, Donald Link and Mike Lata.

After three years running One Legged Magpie, the Porcos have hit their stride. Mike arrives at the restaurant early each day and works until 10. Kat helps at the restaurant but prioritizes playing mom to 18-year-old Quinn and 16-year-old Elle and supporting those around her.

One Legged Magpie is a space where she can do that.

“People seek her out,” Mike says. “These people may not even know her, but are drawn to her, asking her for help. She is that beacon that people are drawn to.”