Barbara Lawlor, Gold Hill. They say that a restaurant is only as successful as its staff is happy and welcoming. No matter how great the food, a rude or cranky waitperson can ruin a dining experience. Contented servers make for return clientele.
Perhaps that is why the Gold Hill Inn is one of the longest family owned restaurants in Boulder County: its employees have always considered themselves family and have always been treated as such.
Last Sunday afternoon, June 11, 2017, 55 years’ worth of past and present employees were treated to an afternoon of food, drink and reuniting with people from the past. Some of the former staff remembered when the Inn first opened back in 1962, when they were young, poor and out on their own, looking for an anchor in the small historic mining town.
Frank and Barbara Finn and their young children purchased the rustic lodge and the Blue Bird Hotel and started serving gourmet meals in a setting that visitors fell in love with: the log cabin, the large fireplaces, the nude above the bar, the pull-chain toilets; nothing was fancy, but everything was warm and welcoming, offering a sense of home to a generation of young people who had left their homes behind.
If the Inn was home, then Frank and Barbara were the mentors who hired the first batch of employees, the staff that would set tradition and establish the legacy that would last to this day.
Now sons Brian and Chris run the Inn, and in keeping with their parents’ philosophy of treating employees as members of the family, held a reunion and, of course, a feast.
It was a boisterous bunch. Being in the familiar setting put everyone at ease; conversations often began with “remember when…”
Three former employees dating back to the first decade, the ‘60s, found themselves giggling at some of their memories. Lin Folsom, Marilyn Soby and Mary Ryan took turns recalling the “good old days.”
Lin now lives on a boat in Anacortes, Washington, and often returns to visit her old Gold Hill friends.
She worked as a waitress beginning in 1968 when the only heat in the building came from the fireplaces and the stoves. “When I came to work, I had to knock the ice off the glasses when I opened. We had heaters but we would only set them up where guests were seated. We couldn’t waste the heat on a table where no one was sitting.”
Lin had young children at the time and getting off work to be with them was one of her priorities.
One night a coworker asked her to sub for him, saying he had been invited to go to dinner with Judy Collins. Lin told him she’d wait until 6 p.m. but then she was going home to be with her kids.
“At 6:00, Judy Collins walked in and asked me, ‘Do you know who I am,’ and said she wanted to go to dinner with her friend and that she was Judy Collins. I told her no, I wouldn’t sub for her friend.
She went to talk to Barbara Finn, who also told her no. Her friend had to work, and I went home to be with my kids.”
Marilyn Soby worked at the Inn from 1963 -1969. She says everyone had to do everything. “I remember washing dishes when the water pipes had frozen and we had to melt the water.
Wonderful Boulder people would come up to eat and they were generous and warm. I once served Walter Mondale’s wife when he was the vice president. At that time, many of the employees were hippies and couldn’t pass a security check, so Mary Ryan and I got to work that night. We both had little girls under five years old.”
Marilyn remembers pulling her 1948 Ford station wagon up to the back door of the kitchen and putting the girls to sleep in it while she worked. None of the waitstaff was paid a salary; they worked for tips, which were pooled and divided among them. A good night would bring in $20.
Mary says that while Mondale was in town, she took a picture of him with the town donkey, Twinkles, who lived to be about 30 years old and just wandered around Gold Hill, getting handouts from the locals. Mary says, “He was a real democrat,” not saying if she meant Mondale or the donkey.
She remembers when the Finn boys would stand on top of milk crates to wash dishes. There was a time when all three of the women thought for sure they’d be fired after getting caught nibbling on the blue cheese. They survived and love blue cheese to this day.
Kayanne Pickens of Ward worked at the Inn from 2005 -2012 and says it was the best service industry job anyone could ever ask for. “I loved working for the Finns, enjoyed the spirit of collective camaraderie. Brian always expected us to work together, everyone helping everybody else. He insisted on a democratic relationship: no back stabbing. If you worked hard, you made good money and you always got fed and always had parties. I had a built in night life. At the end of my shift, I had a drink, a band and friends.”
Kayanne says some of the staff were scared of the old buildings, the stories of ghosts, but she always felt there was a spirit of merriment and would say hi to them.
Mary Kottenstette, now a Nederland resident, worked at the Inn in the late 80’s when she first moved to Colorado and was living in Sunshine Canyon. One night having dinner at the Inn, she thought it would be so cool to work there. When she saw that they needed help, she went in and Frank told her, “What you see is what you get. There is no pretense here, and no salary.”
Mary lived in the Finn’s house that winter when they went to Key West. When the family came back to Gold Hill, Mary moved to Nederland.
“I had a good time working at the Inn. It was laid back and enjoyable. Frank would bring us in-kitchen beers, but we weren’t allowed to get drunk. If we did, they would put us up for the night and then ridicule us for days. We all learned our lesson. The Finns were my heroes.”
On Sunday, a new generation of employees worked the dining room as the past generations enjoyed themselves. One day, they too will be part of the Inn’s rich history of making not only the clientele feel welcome, but also making the employees feel like family, they are joining generations of workers who started their Colorado life in a log cabin with a chain-pull toilet.
A good place to call home.
