Jan. 12, 2023

Troy Barthel, Kevin Nelson and Jordan Miller are writing their own punchline to the joke “three bankers walk into a bar.”

The co-workers at Plains Commerce Bank recently moved their small sports bar, The Big Dill, into a converted garage west of the Interstate 29 interchange on 271st Street in Tea.

Last summer, they bought an existing bar in the central part of Tea that also offered ax-throwing but had to leave that site when they lost their lease. They reopened in early December.

“We were just trying to figure out something to do on the side just to have a little fun,” Miller said of starting their business venture.

That didn’t include ax-throwing, so they dropped the activity.

“We’re trying to be a small-town bar for people to come to,” Miller said of The Big Dill. “It’s not going to be too rowdy or anything out of control.”

Before Sunday’s SDSU-NDSU championship game, the owners and customers were lining up dishes for a potluck and playing dice.

There are four large-screen TVs, seating at the bar and at high-top and regular tables for about three dozen customers, and a separate area for video lottery. A large garage door will open to patio seating when the weather is nice, and they envision having live music outside.

The Big Dill sells beer in bottles and cans, and the owners are looking into adding a couple of tap lines. The bar serves five varieties of Harry’s Pizza and, of course, pickles.

“We have a bunch of pickles,” Miller said. “You can put them in your beer. If you want to buy them, you can. We make them. We try to make hot, spicy pickles just ourselves.”

The name of the bar is an inside joke for the friends. Barthel is a vice president at the bank.

“Through the years, we’d laugh because he’d run around and say he’s a ‘big dill.’ So then, we bought him a coffee cup that’s got a pickle on it. When we bought this bar, it’s like, what are we going to do? Just something different. We all like having pickles in our beer, and we’re just like, you know what, we’re just going to roll with it and see what happens.”

The bar at 46992 271st St. — just east of I-29 Antiques & Collectibles Mall — opens daily at 11 a.m. and closes at 9 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Sometimes, it’s open later if there are customers, Miller noted.