Dinners Done Right

Most people have a quick answer when someone asks what they do. Vikki Bohlman has needed nineteen years to refine hers. "We're your professional sous chefs," she says. "You just cook it."

The freezer cases along the wall near the counter tell the rest of the story — hearty cheese tortellini, queso chicken, Swedish meatballs; all prepped on site, labeled, and ready to grab. It's a place most people in Helena have driven past on the corner of Cedar Street and Montana Avenue without knowing what's inside.

Born and raised in Miles City, Vikki has always called Montana home. However, in 2000, her husband's job with the hospital forced their family to transfer from Helena to Lacey, Washington on a promise that he could be hired back in Helena when a spot opened up. As a busy stay-at-home mom of three kids, Vikki found a Dinners Done Right store while there. A moms group she was a part of would take turns with meal preparations at the Dinners Done Right. To share the load of feeding their busy families they would alternate the work. One week a group of eight moms would help babysit while another group of eight prepped meals. Then they'd swap the next week. Twelve meals a month, ready to pull from the freezer on the nights when soccer practice, band recitals, or parent-teacher conferences ran late and nobody wanted to hear the typical fast food restaurant names again.

In 2005, a job opportunity back in Montana opened and they moved home. Inspired by her experience in Washington she applied to start a Dinners Done Right franchise in Helena. However, someone had already beaten her to it, and the Helena location opened in October 2007. The initial rejection to get into the franchise turned out to be a gift in disguise. Shortly after that news, she received word of her grandfather's failing health. She was able to spend time with him in Bozeman during his final days. "It was a blessing," she says. "I got to be there when he passed." She doesn't say it like a consolation. She says it like someone who understands that the thing you didn't get sometimes makes room for the thing you needed.

A year later, the person who'd started the Helena location had to move out of state. The Dinners Done Right corporate office called the only other applicant in Montana. By February 2009, Vikki had written the check and owned the franchise. By May, life threw her family another curveball when her husband nearly died.

"He was not expected to live," she says, matter-of-fact. "Thankfully, it only took him four months to get back to work." She pauses. "Only four months."

While initially a franchise operation, a legal dispute with the franchise owner resulted in the remaining store locations becoming individually owned. The owners all tried to work together to support the brand and share ideas. Over the years, the number of other Dinners Done Right locations in neighboring states fell away. One by one, the others closed. By 2018, only Vikki remained.

None of this happened in a vacuum. She took over the store. The recession hit. Her husband was recovering. She was trying to explain a business concept that Helena had never seen — take-home meals that still required cooking, made with real ingredients, prepped by someone else so you didn't have to chop, measure, or plan. Not a restaurant. Not a meal kit. Not microwave dinners. Something in between that didn't have a convenient label.

"I had one gentleman that came in," she says. "He was like, 'Until you've been here for five years, I'm not ever going to use you.'"

To get the word out, she joined every group she could find to pitch her unique offering. Bridal shows, moms' groups, weight-loss communities. She donated products. She showed up. She even found an all-men's networking group just to meet as many people as she could to tell them about Dinners Done Right.

Early on, the original model had customers come into the shop and prepare their own meals with assistance from her team — six or twelve at a time, assembled at stations. It worked until it didn't. Payroll for sessions where only one person showed up ate at the margins. In 2019, Vikki shut that side down and started prepping everything herself. The pandemic served as the appropriate time to fully transition away from the original model. The real reason was simpler. "I was losing money."

After that switch, business actually improved.

Now the freezers are stocked with meal options Vikki and her team prepare ahead of time, ready for any occasion. Grab one meal or twenty. No minimum order, no subscription, no appointment. Order online or in person. The menu changes monthly — Vikki develops it herself from a library of over 400 recipes, testing each one with her employees before it hits the menu. Comfort foods in winter. Lighter fare in summer. Tuscan soup in November or December, because some things are non-negotiable. "People think I just throw it together," she says. "It's about a two-to-three-month process because I have to know if it tastes good, and you have to freeze it, and then you have to try it again."

Her popular salad bar started sixteen years ago, born from not wanting to throw away the extra vegetables she was already chopping for meals. One prep station of romaine. It's doubled since then. She'd triple it if she had the electrical capacity. This past August she added a ramen bar — her daughter saw the concept on TikTok, and Vikki couldn't find anything like it in Montana. They started with fifteen ramen flavors. They're past sixty now. With a similar feel to the salad bar, the ramen bar allows customers to customize what ingredients they want to add with their bowls. Five minutes later they have a piping hot, nutritious meal they made themselves for dining in or taking to go. The kombucha in the drink coolers that used to sit largely untouched now moves faster because ramen lovers and kombucha apparently go together.

"You have to grow, you have to change," Vikki says. "If you have a business that's like, 'No, this is the only way we can do it,' you're not going to make it."

Her chicken is antibiotic and hormone-free. The ranch dressing, honey balsamic vinaigrette, honey mustard, and blue cheese are all made from scratch on site. The romaine and spinach get no preservatives. She's not organic — she's honest about why. "What would really be the difference, besides the price?" She talks with her food-service suppliers and sources the best products she can for the meals they prepare.

Some customers who find Dinners Done Right tend to be living through something specific. New parents running on no sleep who need to eat at two in the morning. Widowers who never had to cook because their spouses handled every meal. Families who realized that feeding four at the usual fast food restaurant costs fifty dollars and nobody feels good after. One review mentioned the phrase that Vikki has heard more than once: "You saved my life."

"When my mom was killed, everybody was bringing food," she says, and you realize she's not telling this story from the outside. "It's hot food, right? And you're like, great, we're throwing three-quarters of this out because you can't eat anything because you're grieving." When people bring Dinners Done Right meals instead, they say put this in your freezer. For when everybody has left and you need food and you don't want to think about what to make.

Vikki runs the place with two employees. Her oldest daughter, who started with her at the beginning, came back after working elsewhere. Her other employee has been there for eight years. Both stay for the flexibility and the culture. "They've been out in the real world," Vikki says. "You can get fired because your kid's been sick too many days." She can't always match the hourly wages some fast-food chains offer, but she can give her employees a schedule that works around real life and a boss who gets it.

Vikki's heart is in the Helena community. She sits on the board of the Helena Chamber of Commerce and pushes them to focus on small businesses. She supports the Humane Society, 4-H, Coats for Kids, and the Cancer Support Community of Helena — she's a breast cancer survivor herself. She'd rather donate a basket to a cause she can see working than write a check to something abstract.

"We're your professional sous chefs," she says when someone asks her to explain it one more time. "You just cook it."

Nineteen years of explaining. Nineteen years of people driving past and wondering what it is. Nineteen years of changing the menu, altering the model, and stocking the freezer before the open sign turns on. This October marks their anniversary. Vikki Bohlman is still here. The freezer cases are full. And she's already ordered the turkeys for Thanksgiving — locked in early, because the supply isn't guaranteed and her customers don't want to think about it. They just want their dinner done right.