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Julio's Coaches Corner:
- a place for the young and the old
Brandi
Williams - Arrow Staff
 |
| At
Julio's Coaches Corner in Whitefish, teens can come dance or listen
to bands in the upstairs portion of the bar. |
Maybe Julio Delgado got
the idea for an exciting club from what he saw as a child on the streets
of New York City.
When Delgado, a Whitefish coach/teacher, was a child
he moved from his home country of Cuba and then came to live in Whitefish
before later moving to New York City the freshmen year of high school.
After living in New York for about a year, Delgado decided
to move back to Whitefish, for the remainder of his high school years
- and then some, where he has taught and coached at WHS for the past 23
years.
Delgado's new night club, Julio's Coaches Corner, which
is located in downtown Whitefish, is not just a place for the older crowd.
A few weeks ago they put on a dance for high schools kids, and hope to
be able to continue to do things for the younger residents of the Flathead.
"When we have high school dances we want to tie
it in with some sort of fund raiser for a club or a athletic team, we
want to give something back to the kids," said Delgado. "Were
certainly not trying to make money off kids."
"I wanted to start a bar in Whitefish here all
my life," says Delgado. "I thought that it would be neat, and
I thought it would be a cool business to be in."
Delgado and his two business partners, Bob Frank, and
Bill Leonard, thought that the Flathead Valley was ready for a full entertainment
establishment.
"We wanted to have a sports bar that would have
a little bit of history of the Flathead area," says Delgado. "And
we wanted to have a restaurant that was reasonably priced, but well rounded.
And then we wanted a night club atmosphere with a full schedule of entertainment."
Deciding to open up a bar was the easy part, but the
process of getting it up and going took some time.
"It took a lot of hard work, a lot of hoops to
jump through. Whitefish was not an easy place to build a new bar,"
says Delgado. "There hasn't been a new bar built in Whitefish for
50 years."
When you take a look around Julio's, the decorations
and the atmosphere strikes you as unusual. It's not the usual kind of
bar where there are smoke clouds everywhere you turn or the music is so
loud and obnoxious that you can't hear your friend talk, or the walls
are adorned with pictures of half-dressed women.
"It's got kind of the old '50's, '60's look,"
says Delgado. "People are really tickled to see what kind of club
we have here, it's totally a different atmosphere as to what people are
use to."
Along with the somewhat unusual bar scene, the Coach's
Corner has a little bit of history from the Flathead in it.
"The sports bar downstairs is great because they
get to see former players and athletes throughout the Flathead Valley
and it's not just pictures," says Delgado. "We have a lot of
newspaper articles that we have framed and matted."
With the month or so that Julio's Coach's Corner has
been open, Delgado has set some goals for the future.
"We want to provide a great establishment that
would be fun to come to and a full entertainment establishment, "
says Delgado. "Our goal is to pay it off as quickly as we can and
to hopefully provide something new and exciting to do in the Flathead
Valley."
Sooner or later, Julio's Coach's Corner will have a
set schedule of events and social functions, but for the mean time it
is a safe and fun place to go to in the Flathead.
Says Delgado: "A fun place to go, with a great
atmosphere, friendly service, a place where they can all have a good time
in a safe environment."
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