BEST OF THE MOUNTAIN WEST
Although it’s a bit of a cliché, the phrase “unbridled optimism” is an apt descriptor for how we felt when we began concepting this inaugural edition of “Best Of The Mountain West,” a story spanning eight states that we’d hoped would become a reader favorite in the years to come (and still do!). That was, of course, in the Before Times. As in, before many of us were relegated to our houses by stay-at-home orders; before concert venues and museums and bars and restaurants and hotels and boutiques closed, many for good; and before adventure outfitters limited their operations. But put on your bolo ties and your best boots anyway, because despite our complicated reality, we’re still tipping our 10-gallons to the characters, landscapes, institutions, and objects molding the West right now. After all, even in 2020, our reverence for the great outdoors, our thirst for adventure, our connections to our past, our talent, and our pioneering spirit live on in Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming, Montana, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, and Idaho. Let us introduce you to 26 ways the Western ethos lives on today.
FOOD
BIN 707 FOODBAR
Josh Niernberg always knew there was something special in the ingredients growing along Colorado’s Western Slope. In 2011, the self-taught chef saw a chance to open a restaurant that would, he says, “provide a sense of place for where we are in the world.” Bin 707 Foodbar was born—and put Grand Junction on the culinary map. In 2017, Niernberg expanded with Taco Party, a fast-casual restaurant that uses Indigenous corn in its tortillas. In February 2020, Niernberg’s efforts to preserve and define Colorado cuisine earned him a Best Chef: Mountain semifinalist nod from the James Beard Foundation. Then COVID-19 struck, and the 45-year-old was forced to get creative: Dinner Party (a special-events dining room) was transformed into Bin Burger; he launched wine and cocktail clubs; and he assembled greenhouses on Bin 707’s patio to extend the outdoor dining season. At press time, his ingenuity was working. bin707.com
NATURE
AMERICAN PRAIRIE RESERVE
Out on the vast swaths of north-central Montana, a team of visionaries is slowly building an empire of sagebrush steppe and butte-lined river lands. The dream is as big as the prairie sky: to create a 3.2-millionacre preserve that restores an intact ecosystem, including grizzly bears, wolves, elk, and bison, the last of which biologists began reintroducing to the land in 2005. Over the past 19 years, the
