Rare is the career chef who went to culinary school right after high school, graduated, hopped on the line, worked their way up the corporate ladder and eventually retired at age 60. Oftentimes, it resembles a career arc of someone like Chase Edwards, who opened Mountain High Diner at 2915 Main Ave. on Jan. 8 in a two-week span after two years of operating his Mountain High Catering food truck at the Durango Hot Springs Resort.
The 56-year-old self-taught, classically certified chef forged a note from his mom at age 13 so he could wash dishes at Chi-Chi’s restaurant in Austin, Texas, but before cooking became his full-time career, he spent 30 years on the road professionally. Exactly what he was doing professionally is open ended.
“Just strong ‘standing on the street corner’ sales background for me,” he said.
He toured the world with bands, living on a tour bus, reselling tickets, booking event packages, working restaurant jobs during his down time or, to generalize it, hustling.
That nomadic path included meals so good it led him back to the kitchen in search of someone to make dishes that he couldn’t find anyone else to cook for him.
“I ate some of the best food this world has to offer, all over the planet, and no one would cook it for me, so I made it for myself,” he said.
Those years on the road can be tasted in his food. With influences from six months in Athens, Greece, a childhood in Texas, time in New Orleans, many other stops and two culinary degrees, Edwards is confident he can cook something that people will want to eat, which is how he’s developing his menu.
“(Customers are) going to tell me what they want. I’m not trying to inflict (my food) on them. I’m going to show them what I can do,” he said, noting that menu construction is a strong suit, pivoting is easy and the only marriage in his life is “to my wife.”
Feeling confined by the tourist-leaning clientele of the hot springs, he said the reason for relocating was to expand his local customer base and bypass the price of admission for his food.
“(Customers) can just waltz right up and buy a burger from me” without having to pay an entry fee, he said.
Right now, Mountain High Diner is offering the same menu – literally taken from his truck and taped below the service counter – that Edwards sold out of his food truck at the hot springs: burgers, tacos, chicken tenders, gyros, falafel and homemade hummus. He said the menu was popular among patrons of the hot springs, and a few locals have already tracked him down at the diner.
In addition to those offerings, a tow-behind smoker stationed out back cranks out barbecue briskets, pork shoulders and whole chickens. There’s also an array of traditional sides like french fries, potato salad and coleslaw, and a variety of flavorful sauces from chimichurri to roasted tomatillo salsa and a creamy jalapeno sauce. An up-to-date menu will eventually be displayed on monitors, which have been ordered but are yet to be delivered.
If Edwards sounds a little frenetic – or as he put it, “out of his mind” – that appears to be by design. New restaurants are usually methodically planned over months, sometimes years, with refined concepts, but he said that would’ve taken too much time.
“I pulled out of the hot springs (Jan. 4),” he said. “Within the last 16 days, I’ve been able to find this place, get a lease, get the health department, get the fire department, get the city to give me a business license, and I’ve been open for four days.”
While the diner has the necessary permits to operate, a liquor license is in the works, he said. Delivery, takeout and Sunday brunch also are voids he hopes to fill for local eaters. Mountain High Diner’s first brunch is this weekend, and Edwards is trying to get takeout and delivery apps up and running by the end of the week.
Once the logistics are ironed out, the long-term goal is to serve the community good food.
“I love Durango, this town is great, my wife is a long timer here,” he said. “ … So if I could just get this place going and serve people what they want, and they love it, that would make me very happy.”
