The historic Hotel Sisters has new owners and a fresh face. But patrons who loved the old Bronco Billy’s will be pleased to know the changes are more cosmetic than dramatic, and the menu is more updated than altered from top to bottom.

The Sisters Saloon & Ranch Grill, as it has been known since its April 1 reopening, remains a restaurant urban cowboys can enjoy as much as true cowhands.

Historical photos and Western movie posters adorn the walls, and in the intimate lounge, mountain game heads and a full-wall mural of saloon girls keep company with a Civil War-era back bar once shipped around Cape Horn from Philadelphia to San Francisco. A team of servers, meanwhile, appears dressed for a rodeo ball in their formal finery.

Built in 1912, the clapboard Hotel Sisters welcomed overnight guests for 66 years, even though the building changed hands in a poker game in the World War I years and is rumored to have been a brothel in the 1920s. The late Bill Reed turned it into an antique store, bookstore and art gallery between 1978 and 1985, when he partnered with restaurateurs John Keenan and John Tehan and opened Bronco Billy’s in 1985. It has been a dining establishment ever since.

Early this year, however, Keenan and Tehan sold the business to new owners Ashley and Aaron Okura. Their makeover added elegance throughout the dining room and lounge, along with a music stage for serenades by local musicians.

Veggie-friendly

One of the Okuras’ most obvious changes to their “contemporary cowboy grub” menu was the addition of several vegetarian-friendly courses. That’s a sign of the times in this rodeo-friendly, beef-hungry town.

There’s now a quinoa black-bean salad, for instance, along with vegetarian lasagna and stuffed zucchini. There’s a garden burger and an “Eat Your Veggies” sandwich.

My dining companion and I thoroughly enjoyed a roasted beet and goat cheese salad we shared. It was made with a fresh blend of arugula and baby spinach, along with wedges of red and golden beets, hazelnuts, apple slices and globs of goat cheese. She thought it was a little overdressed with blood-orange vinaigrette. I was pleased with the amount, although it would have been just as easy to serve the dressing on the side.

The soup of the day, on our lunch visit, was rich not only in vegetables — it was a creamy blend of spinach, cauliflower and asparagus — but also in butter. Too much butter.

Nana’s Pot Pie was tasty enough, but it wasn’t really a pie, and it didn’t come in a pot. Instead, a puff pastry was floated upon finely chopped chicken, potatoes, zucchini, carrots and peas, seasoned with black pepper and cream and served in a sizzling iron skillet.

The Caballero Burger was very good — made with grass-fed beef from a local producer, according to our server. Cooked medium, it retained its juiciness and was served with a roasted poblano chile, bacon and provolone cheese, as well as guacamole and a spread of chipotle aioli. Lettuce, tomato and red onion were an additional garnish, along with a generous helping of fries.

Meat lovers

Burgers are one of the most popular menu items here. In keeping with the Bronco Billy’s tradition, a majority of diners are here for the meat, including steaks and ribs.

My 14-ounce rib-eye steak was perfectly cooked, medium rare as I like it. Trimmed, seared and roasted, it was topped with a dollop of rosemary butter and served, on my request, with a baked potato. My only complaint was that the fresh seasonal vegetables — in this case, Brussels sprouts, carrots and zucchini — were a little too undercooked.

My companion enjoyed the boneless ruby trout, one of two pan-seared fish (along with Columbia River steelhead) on the menu. A buttery toasted almond sauce was an excellent complement to the trout’s pink flesh, which had been thoroughly filleted so there were no surprise bones. She enjoyed it with house-mashed potatoes and veggies.

Our servers, on both visits, were friendly and quick to attend us. But our lunches were very slow to be delivered, a problem more to do with kitchen speed than table service. And our dinner server, while absolutely charming, was overly talkative — not just to our table, but to others we observed. I love an extroverted server, but not when it leaves other tables waiting.

— John Gottberg Anderson can be reached at janderson@bendbulletin.com