Jan's Restaurant ~ Buena Vista, Colorado

First visit: Jun 2022

It was time for Mrs. RJG and I to take a much needed quick road trip to the mountains. We haven't spent a night in the interior of Colorado since before the pandemic. The purpose of this trip was to visit Crestone, which sits on the other side of the Sangre de Cristo mountain range from Westcliffe. As noted recently, Westcliffe is a favorite destination of ours. As the crow flies, it would be a very easy jaunt to Crestone. However, there a few 14,000 foot mountains to get in the way. It must have been quite a sight for those wagon trains heading west in the 1800s to behold. And I'm sure terrifying. As such one has to go around the range - and that's what we did. One way is via US 24 and the others are US 50 and US 160. We usually go through via US 50, so we mixed it up a bit this time. By going US 24, it allows us to visit one of our favorite stops: Buena Vista.

We arrived for a late breakfast / early lunch, and after reviewing a handful of places, Jan's seemed like an obvious choice. The current name and owners go back to 1991, but the building itself has housed restaurants since the 1940s. For certain, my Dad would have made this his go-to stop if Buena Vista was in his territory. It's a large place with 2 distinct dining areas.

The menu is eclectic as you would expect. I went with a beef burrito smothered in green. The chili is a bit whiter and thicker than I'm used to, and wasn't very appealing to the eye. However once I started to wolf it down, I found myself enjoying the slightly sweet and spicy gravy. The spiced ground beef was also tangy and excellent - beyond the norm. It also comes with rice and refried beans. The beans were very thick, but once again I enjoyed the flavor more than I thought. Rice was great too. Mrs. RJG had a cheeseburger and fries. She enjoyed her meal - they actually made it well done and it was perfectly cooked. Passing her test isn't easy anymore. Worth going to. We've now been to 3 eateries in Buena Vista: Jan's, K's Dairy Delite, and Eddyline Brewery. All very good, though we haven't written about the latter 2 here in the RJG. The K's visit goes back to 2002...

6/8/22 (new entry)

(thanks to Buena Vista Chamber of Commerce for photo)