IGNACIO
Plantains and purple Peruvian potatoes are a rare sight in rural Southwest Colorado. But here they were sitting beside prime-cut beef and an array of sauces in the shiny new kitchen of Seven Rivers steakhouse.
Hamadou Dagnogo displayed the ingredients like a proud father. As the executive sous chef of Sky Ute Casino’s newest restaurant, Dagnogo has wide reign to seek out and ship in the best ingredients he can find.
John Maskovich, the casino’s director of food and beverage services, showed off the kitchen as he strolled through Seven Rivers and its more casual counterpart, Willows Baja Grille. In creating the restaurants, he describes a similar leeway to pursue the best of the best thanks to one not-so-insignificant detail. Both are under the umbrella of the Sky Ute Casino’s massive business operations, a fact that gives the eateries the financial wherewithal to not only raise the culinary bar in Ignacio, but rival other top restaurants in the region.
Seven Rivers intends to attract diners from across the Four Corners, even restaurant-heavy Durango, Maskovich said.
“I would put up steaks in this restaurant against any in the area,” he said.
Maskovich, who grew up in Cortez, is no restaurant amateur. He has built 35 restaurants and bars in his career, including six high-end steakhouses.
He said he aims for his menu items to cost about 15 percent less than the Cosmo’s and Ore Houses of the dining scene. Part of the reason he can do that is because the casino is the biggest grocery buyer in the region and can leverage the best prices, said Bill Barbone, the casino’s executive chef.
The casino fed about 500,000 people last year, which works out to 1,300 people per day, and this year, it’s on track to feed 600,000
“We’re not small potatoes,” Barbone said. “We want to be the leaders in the area.”
Being a part of the casino’s operations also allows Maskovich to defy the economics that face independent restaurateurs. While they constantly must worry about making a profit, “I just have to break even,” he said.
The financial support was there even during the recession, when eateries nationwide took a hit. Instead of laying off employees or looking for ways to cut costs, the tribe was willing to reinvest in itself, Maskovich said.
Tribal councilors agreed to put $1.3 million into renovating both restaurants, with $1 million of that money going toward Seven Rivers. The steakhouse’s leather-upholstered chairs, modern chandeliers and a 300-bottle wine humidor make it clear the restaurant is gunning for status equal to Durango’s top steakhouses. Cost-wise, it helped that Seven Rivers and Willows didn’t have to build a new building. They moved into a space that formerly was the casino’s buffet, so it already had many of the necessary kitchen infrastructure.
Locals and tourists who come to Sky Ute to gamble or experience the casino’s other attractions provide a stream of potential diners. Maskovich estimated that casino visitors make up about 60 percent of the diners at Seven Rivers and the Willows Baja Grille.
At the same time, Sky Ute benefits from the new restaurants because they provide more ways for the casino to differentiate itself from competitors.
“From the standpoint of food offerings, we now have a wider range of styles of cuisine and more high-end options for our clientele, which gives us a little better advantage in dealing with a wide range of customers we serve,” Maskovich said.
Food is an integral part of the gaming experience, said Stephan Turner, the casino’s director of marketing.
“A gaming organization without food is really taking a lot of risk,” he said.
ecowan@durangoherald.com
