Restaurant project progressing

Hatz biplane arrives for upcoming Overlook Bar and Grill

A key design element for the planned Overlook Bar and Grill in Lovell arrived at the North Big Horn County Airport last Wednesday, May 22 – a homebuilt Hatz biplane that will hang in the restaurant when it is completed.

The new restaurant being constructed by Devin and Stacy Bair, owners and operators of Bairco Construction of Lovell, is currently in the design phase, Stacy Bair said, but the opportunity to add an aviation element to the restaurant décor came along a few weeks ago.

“The Overlook is going to be themed for the canyon (Big Horn Canyon), obviously, so a portion of it will be themed watercraft – boating, rafting and kayaking – and the other half will be themed aviation, because that’s the other way to see the canyon,” Stacy Bair said. “Theoretically, we have all three of the best ways to see the canyon covered – the overlook (at Devil’s Canyon) in the name and then in the canyon with the water theme and then in the air to get the whole picture.”

The “lightly themed” watercraft element will mainly be covered by the décor in the dining area, Bair said, a kind of nautical touch, and the bar side will have the aviation theme. The biplane will be suspended from the ceiling in the two-story building and be viewed from the first floor as well as the second level.

The find

A suspended airplane has been in the works all along, Bair said, and after an idea to purchase a local plane fell through, Bairco engineer and pilot Charlie Cooley found the Hatz on the internet.

“It (the Hatz) was already in contract when we first reached out, and that deal luckily ended up falling through, so we were in second position to buy the plane,” Bair said.

The Hatz biplane was built in Illinois by Rick Hansen, and unlike a kit plane where all of the parts are provided, the Hatz is a “plans built” plane where the plans are provided, but the builder has to find all of the materials and parts.

“All they send is a set of plans,” Cooley said. “They don’t send any material or anything … The kit-built planes are significantly easier.”

It took five years for Hansen to build the plane – 1980-85 – so the plane is 39-plus years old, though it is designed to look like a much older, historic airplane.

Though certainly airworthy, the Hatz will only take to the skies a few more times, likely by Devin Bair or Cooley, before being taken out of service to hang in the restaurant. The Bairs reached out to Hansen to ask questions about the Hatz and also let him know the plane he built would no longer be flying.

“He was excited about it,” Bair said. “We were nervous that he would not be thrilled with us taking an airworthy plane and suspending it, but he was super excited that that many people would get to enjoy it.”

She noted that Hansen’s Hatz was named grand champion of the Oshkosh, Wisconsin, air show in the Plans Built Division in 1986.

The Hatz has a slightly more powerful engine than the plans called for, Cooley noted, a Lycoming 0-290-3 engine.

When the Bairs and Cooley found the plane in Florida, near Orlando, it was on its third owner and came up for sale because the pilot who owned it last had died and his widow was selling the plane.

After the purchase, Bairco had to find a pilot to fly the plane north and found Kevin Garcia of Tail Wheel Adventures. Working his way from Florida to Wyoming, flying with the open cockpit, Garcia took about a month to make the trip: 11 flying days but nearly a month on the calendar. The Hatz flies about 100 miles per hour and must land for refueling about every two hours.

When Garcia reached Texas, tornados and high winds struck the state, and Garcia had to shelter the small, 900-pound biplane for a couple of days in Austin.

“He had to really watch winds,” Cooley said. “With crosswinds, the most you can really have with it is probably 15 to 20 miles an hour, so he’s dodging that trying to get to the right runways while only being able to fly two hours, which really isn’t very far.”

 Then near Amarillo, the carburetor went out, and Garcia had to land the plane on a highway, aided by a co-pilot who helped find the open road. The pair pulled the plane into a cornfield and found out the part they needed had to be custom built. It took about a week and a half for the part to arrive while Garcia returned to Florida on a commercial flight and the Hatz was stored at Cal Farley’s Boys Ranch.

Law enforcement cleared the highway of traffic, and Garcia resumed his flight on Sunday, May 19. Garcia reached Casper on May 21 and landed in Cowley on May 22.

The restaurant

As for the Overlook Bar and Grill, the project is nearing the end of the architectural design phase, with delays in the kitchen design stretching the timeline.

“Hopefully in the next 30 days or so we can have the design finalized, and then we’ll have to start the process of submitting the plans to the state and starting the permitting process, which can take up to two months,” Bair said.

Bairco is the general contractor and is doing all of the site work – dirt work, utilities and plumbing, with subcontractors hired to perform other facets of the project.

If all goes well, Bairco could break ground in July and the restaurant could be finished by the spring of 2025.

Bair said the Overlook will be a general family restaurant with the flexibility to handle teams and other groups.

“There will be a modest space on the main floor for dining, and then we’ll open the upstairs if we need that for overflow, and the upstairs will also have a small group space – enough to accommodate a team and business meetings.”

Though she said the menu is “ever evolving,” the Overlook will feature “basic, contemporary American food like burgers, steaks and chicken.”

There will be an exterior patio with adjacent fire pits to help warm customers during the shoulder seasons, with a wall to the north protecting customers from the wind.

Bair said staffing factors into almost every decision, and in order to cut down on needed wait staff, customers will be able to order at a counter, kiosk or by smartphone from a table. Self-serve beverages are in the plans.

“Every single decision we’re making is with staffing in mind,” she said, adding, “Our hope for this is that it’s a place where even teens would feel comfortable coming, just ordering fries and hanging out for an hour or two. Our hope for this place is it’s an environment where people feel like they can hang out for a while, and they don’t have to come and go.

“Even in the bar we’re going to have a whole mocktail menu just to keep the vibe. I think it’s going to be so neat in the bar. It would be a shame for people to stereotype it. I think it’s going to be classy enough that it’s not going to feel like other bars.”