Guns & grins

“This ain’t your fancy-dancy restaurant,” says Tim Van Valin, who plays the sassy “Uncle Tim” at the Rockin B Ranch’s Western dinner theater show in Liberty Lake.

He stands at the microphone, thumbs tucked into his leather gun holster and leans on his left boot. Tipping his hat back he tells visitors to the Rockin B Ranch that if they want the table cleared, they have to do it themselves, pointing to the dish depot in the back of the dimly lit barn.

At dusk on Friday evening the 12-stall barn is packed with visitors (some from as far away as Australia) clanking jar-shaped glasses full of cool lemonade and serving themselves second helpings of barbecue marinated chicken and soft corn bread.

It’s not the ordinary way to go out to eat, but now entering its 12th season, the Rockin B Ranch is anything but ordinary.

The dinner theater program starts off with a shootout between the Marshal and Bad Land Sam. Dusty Bicuspid, the deputy, humors the audience with his toothless smiles and twangy talk.

“Checkie, checkie,” he calls into the microphone before running out to greet the hungry families. Save outdoor microphone problems, a quiet gun and a slow bullet, the audience giggles and gasps as Bad Land Sam tries to steal the loot from the Depot Station.

As soon as the audience is dismissed for chow time, the Marshal, Eric Dobrenski, shows kids in the audience how they hung Bad Land Sam, without actually hurting 19-year-old Jourdan Simmons.

“And please do NOT try this at home,” Dobrenski warns.

Chow time is announced with a ring of the triangle. Table after table is called up and diners follow a line of barbecued meats, applesauce and steaming beans. Aluminum tins are used as plates, and jars full of crayons sit in the middle of the table for kids to color on the paper-covered tables.

Owners Pamela and Scott Brownlee say each year on the ranch is a new learning experience.

“Every year we fine-tune it,” says Pamela. Every season the Brownlees make another adjustment or two to get perfect their business.

“The barn has taken a life of its own,” she says.

“It’s grown slowly, but it still blows me away. We have a wonderful base of locals who come back and bring guests. It’s just wonderful,” says Scott.

The idea of a ranch-style dinner doesn’t always appeal to first-time guests, but Pamela says that visitors usually change their mind after one night.

“We see people coming in just wearing the week all over them, complaining beforehand, saying, ‘What am I paying for here?’ but by the end of it they are smiling and happy and full of food,” she says.

Just before the couple moved to Liberty Lake from Southern California, their two horses died, which left them with an enormous barn and no horses.

“It begged to have something done with it (the barn),” says Scott. Both Pamela and Scott grew up with the Western culture. Scott, originally from Colorado, always went to Chuck Wagon Suppers, a brand-name Western dinner music program around the Southwest.

“The main concept is to sit around a campfire, eat dinner and enjoy each other’s company,” says Scott.

Pamela grew up in the Santa Yenez Valley of California, where an outdoor barbecue feast was a way of thanks rather than just food.

At the heart of the ranch is a family business. The Brownlees’ children, Penn and Olivia, are just as involved with the program as their parents. Andrew Wilson, who plays the fiddle for the ranch’s live music portion of the program, is married to the kitchen manager, Deanna, and has three young sons often meandering around the ranch during show time.

“Having family work here causes a lot less friction. It’s better than me being gone three nights out of the week,” Wilson says.

Jack and Kay Gentry from Coeur d’Alene brought their daughter, Sabrina Richmond, and grandchildren from Texas to the Rockin’ B Ranch on a recent Friday night.

“It’s really great family entertainment,” says Richmond. “We’ve done stuff like Medieval Times, but this just has a different flavor.”

Gentry says he came back for the music.

“I love the music here. I brought (my wife) up here for her birthday last weekend,” says Gentry. He stops talking once Wilson begins to play the fiddle on stage.

For all the fun and games that comes with the Western dinner theater, there is a history lesson weaved in. During the shootout, Dusty Bicuspid talks to the audience about the old town of Spokane Bridge and how it was a thriving community before Interstate 90 came in and cleared it away.

During the musical portion of the evening, Miss Pammy (Pamela) tells the audience about how ranchers used to sing quietly to keep the cattle calm before she performs a soothing yodel.

Toward the end of the program, Dusty Bicuspid comes back out from behind the curtain with fairy wings on his back and has a small story time for the “youngins,” called “Rindercella.”

It feels like something out of Art Linkletter’s “Kids Say the Darnedest Things.” Richmond’s nephew, Ian, is brought up on stage to help Dusty tell the story of Rindercella. Parents smile and children listen attentively.

“We don’t really make that family vibe happen,” says Pamela, “or we don’t do it consciously.”