Nestled alongside the beautiful Bozeman Creek in the heart of downtown, Fresco Café is a cozy and comfortable location for Italian food lovers.

Focusing on the classics, Fresco offers creekside dining with a made-from-scratch menu featuring favorites like hand rolled ravioli, seafood alfredo, chicken parmigiana, and much more. A hearty wine and beer menu allows for delicious pairings for each dish, as well as a dessert menu featuring tiramisu, flourless chocolate torte, and affogatos to round out your dining experience.

I sat down with Bill Neubauer, who owns Fresco Café along with his wife, Susan. We met over coffee at the cafe’s bar to discuss his cooking experiences, and the inspiration for the café.

Taylor Owens:  How was Fresco Café conceptualized?

Bill Neubauer: Well, through my own experience, and cooking in college. When I was a kid, my grandfather started this supper club in a motel in northern Wisconsin. After my grandfather retired,  my parents took the restaurant over. It was on a lake with ten acres, and my parents built a house behind the restaurant. Whenever they were short-handed, I got called in to work at the restaurant. I learned that I really enjoyed it, you know. One big, extended family. Then I left Wisconsin for college in Colorado, and needed a job. So I naturally went to find a restaurant to work in; it just happened to be in an Italian restaurant. They hired me to be their grill cook. I took it pretty seriously; I memorized the menu, and went to work; I was gonna really nail it. After the first hour, the previous guy, who was supposed to train me, left. I was able to grill the steaks, because I’d done that since I was a kid. On the far side of the line was a sauté station with eight burners. All the ingredients were beautiful and fresh, with wine, garlic, and seafood. He was just cooking a mile a minute, and it looked artistic and fun. On my side of the line, I had the deep fryer, all the steaks, and all the grease.

I looked at that and decided I wanted to learn how to sauté cook. Once I learned, I really never looked back. I could finish work in the kitchen. I could go have a drink. I didn’t smell like a French fry. I learned you can run a restaurant without a fryer; that was eye opening to me. My parents’ restaurant is great, but this was a different style. I had this green spiral notebook, and every time I got another job in an Italian restaurant, I would write down recipes I liked. I then took that notebook to Alaska, where I was a cook at a lodge. Then I met this wild guy from Utah—his name was Fish, and he taught me his pesto sauce recipe. Over time, I accumulated recipes in this notebook, never with the direct intention to open a restaurant; it just was part of journaling for me.

Then my sister came to me and she was like, ‘Hey, you know, the only thing you’ve done your whole life is work in restaurants. If you don’t do something else, you’ll never learn anything.’ For some reason that stuck with me. I was like, ‘I’m gonna take any job in the outdoors.’ That led to ski patrol in Big Sky, then working as a wilderness ranger in the Beartooth Mountains. I did both of those jobs for five to eight years. And for some reason, I reached the eight year mark in those professions, which I thought was gonna be my career. I thought, ‘This is the best thing ever. Why would you ever do anything else?’ I started thinking about restaurants, just could not shake it. I started laying out restaurants at my house. I booked a trip to Italy, and compared their food to what I wanted to make. I also took a lot of photos to conceptualize the colors and the theme of the restaurant. I came back, and found an ad in the newspaper for a little deli for sale. I paid my down payment and went to work.

TO: What would you like people to experience when they walk through your doors?

BN: I think the best thing about the restaurant business is that people are coming here to have a good time. I like it to be a treat from for them, a break from their everyday grind. You know, it’s a time to sit down and hopefully smile and laugh, and have a chance to connect with something other than making a living or shuttling the kids somewhere. That also kind of gives back to me and the staff, because if they’re having a good time, you’re having a good time. So it kind of it goes back and forth.

TO: What do regulars keep coming back for?

BN: It seems like they like the wild sockeye salmon over penne the most. Yeah, that one has become quite popular. It does kind of change over time, people’s preferences. But I’ve changed the menu very little over time, because it took us about seven years to develop it to where I wanted it. Now, I just change one or two items, or create specials, because I don’t really have to reinvent the wheel. I try to keep those consistent items on the menu. So yeah, that pesto dish that Fish shared with me in Alaska is probably the best one.

TO: What is your personal favorite menu item?

BN: I should have one, although I think I eat according to how I feel that day. If I come in on a special occasion, I’m gonna have red wine. I’ll probably go right to the seafood alfredo. But if I’m working at night, and I have to keep my tempo up, then I’ll do like a broccolini with Italian sausage that has a broth and lots of spice. Something not as rich. I kind of navigate the menu like that. I think I’m most proud of the wild sockeye salmon dish, though, because it feels good to have an item that people will identify the restaurant with and come to Fresco for. My mother would always be like, ‘You know, you need to really focus on your menu and be known for something.’ And that is not easy to do. But once you do that, you have a solid foundation. And so I always tried to find that dish that people would latch on to, and then make an effort to not change it.

TO: What would you say makes you unique in the local food scene?

BN: I feel like I’ve had success in the local food scene by making the traditional items from scratch and not cutting corners. It can be more work, but it can also be a lot more rewarding. Like you get the restaurant filled on a Tuesday in January, and you’re like, “Yes, I think I got it,” because it can get pretty dicey sometimes when it gets real quiet. I do have some really, really skilled, talented cooks come through to work for me. And sometimes they’ll say, ‘I can execute this menu, but it’s like you’re stuck in the 80s.’ I guess I’m a little bit guilty of that. But we’re rolling out the ravioli from scratch. We’re making our sourdough bread from scratch. The flavors are great. So I’m gonna stick with that.

TO: What do you personally enjoy most about being part of the greater Bozeman community?

BN: I really like the people I’ve met and the interests they have. I can be walking down the street and run into a buddy I play hockey with and have a chat. Or, I could be up at Bridger and bump into somebody and ride the lift with them and have a conversation. I really identify with people who are out doing their thing, but are also friendly. I really have grown to love this community, and the priority placed on recreation is unbelievable. I go visit my friends in Wisconsin, where I grew up, and there isn’t a men’s league with like 400 people in it. You know, it’s just insane how seriously people take their outdoor and recreational time here. But I can identify with that.

TO: Do you have anything coming up at Fresco that you would like readers to know about?

BN: The patio is open. So that’s a big deal. We have a new dining room that was just finished this past winter. I’m excited to share this with the customers and open the doors over the creek —maybe even put a table out there. I don’t have any special events planned right now, but I hope to do some wine tastings out in the courtyard at some point in the future.

Check out Fresco Café in downtown Bozeman for an exemplary dinner experience this summer season.