No trip to Butte is complete without a visit to the M&M Cigar Store, 9 N. Main St. (tel. 406/723-7612). The cigar store/saloon/diner/casino Jack Kerouac said was "the end of my quest for an ideal bar" was continuously open, 24 hours a day, for more than a century after it went into business in 1890, but found itself boarded up for nearly 2 lonely years after its owner filed for bankruptcy in 2003. But director Wim Wenders fixed the M&M up when he used it as a location for Don't Come Knocking. The renovations made the place a more attractive investment, and it reopened -- with Governor Brian Schweitzer hand-delivering the liquor license (just before he took a shot of whiskey) -- in time for St. Patrick's Day 2005. "May she never close," Schweitzer remarked on that day.
