I suppose all good things come to an end, but when Donita’s Cantina closed in 2019, I felt the void. It felt unnatural. Admittedly, it had been a couple of years since I’d worked a shift or stopped in for a meal. So why this gut-wrenching, empty feeling? “You’ll want at least two restaurant jobs.” This was the advice I received on moving to Crested Butte in 2010. I lucked out, because I found work at Donita’s. For me, it was a lens through which I fell in love with Crested Butte. Donita’s was authentic
with an edgy character. The space was orderly and rough around the edges, like an old general store back east. It offered a familiar comfort. The tin ceiling, handmade tablecloths, hanging flower baskets and that homemade cobbler: everything at Donita’s had a story. Its layout, from the dining room to the kitchen, had purpose. It didn’t take me long to realize that Donita’s character was the result of sisters Kay and Heli’s 20-year-long labor of love. Neither Heli Peterson nor Kay Peterson
Cook moved to Crested Butte with the intention of owning a restaurant. “I was unemployed at the time, and it just fell into place,” explained Kay. Kay’s husband, Don, had just started working for Linda Blackledge in 1980. Linda had dreamed of opening a Mexican restaurant where she could share her grandmother’s recipes. Don had worked for Linda for about one month before rupturing his spleen while skiing gates – yes, gates – on a patch of snow above Green Lake in July. “It was a seasonal tradition,” Kay explained. “So I picked up Don’s shifts. Then I didn’t give him his job back. I thought, I like this!” Five years later Kay was a partial owner, and in 1999 she agreed to buy out her partners, with sister Heli becoming a partial owner shortly thereafter. The two moved through the restaurant methodically yet naturally. When the restaurant was filling up quickly, Kay appeared instantly with chips, salsa and one of those 12-pound water jugs. And before you knew it, Heli was conversing with the customers, evoking belly-deep laughter. As wait staff, I felt like part of a fine-tuned machine. There was closeness and camaraderie from shift meal to closing. Once the dining room was set and the kitchen prepped, staff shuffled into the bar, each with their choice of shift meal. “Seinfeld” playing from the bar television offered a meditative feel. That time was a welcomed cool-down from whatever adventure you’d gone on that day and a necessary transition into go-time. Working a July evening at Donita’s was a non-stop hustle. But fun – for staff and customers – was part of even the busiest of nights. Like prom-dress night, when each wait staffer, man or woman, sported their choice of prom dress from Mary Holder’s and Kay’s collections. Most were relics of the 1980s and ‘90s. “We had some quirky, quirky weirdos that worked for us,” Heli recalled with a laugh. “There was a true sense of family. People stayed and worked for us; they didn’t job hop. That says something.” Janae Deverell Pritchett, who started working at Donita’s in her early twenties, appreciated Kay’s and Heli’s “ability and willingness to tell you ‘how it was,’ without any fluff.” They worked as a sort of yin and yang. Heli would let certain things slide, but not Kay. “Kay was always the boss-boss, and I was the boss that everyone related to,” chuckled Heli. At Donita’s, you worked both for and with Kay and Heli. They were always there, working hard. “I liked being hands-on,” Kay said. “If I didn’t know it, I would learn it. Don learned how to fix every darn thing in the restaurant. Calling people to do 113
