Over 5oo pounds of meat, and only 45 seats means that Head chef John Bromsen doesn’t spend much time outside of Goode’s Q bayou grill.
Goode’s Q is constantly full of customers and is truly the place to be Tuesday through Saturday nights. They go through about 500 pounds of meat in one week and 200 pounds of gator in a month.
Bromsen has been the head chef at Goode’s just over a year. Originally from Missoula, he studied at the Culinary Institute in Chicago and that is where he learned his southern cooking.
Before working at Goode’s he owned his own business in Missoula. Bromsen’s boss, Larry Goode, has a degree in Child Education and moved to Great Falls after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. Larry opened Goode’s Q for his brother Harold, who is also an executive chef.
“After the first year they didn’t think they would make it,” Bromsen said. The brothers had no money in the beginning. They cashed in their entire retirement in order to start this business and were more than $200,000 in debt after the first year. Now that the business has been running more smoothly and is becoming more of a household name in Great Falls they are more in control of their finances. They are also moving.
“We are moving to 25th and 10th Avenue South because we are running out of room for customers,” Larry Goode said. But the space for customers is the least of their worries.
“My bathroom is bigger than the entire kitchen here, it is a really cramped space to be kicking out so much food,” he said.
After they move to their new location the owners are looking to franchise their business out and open another store both in Missoula and Bozeman. Bromsen would “Love to move back to my home town while still doing what I love…Cooking for me has never been a job, here at Goode’s Q it is my passion.”
