Eating Wyoming: The Divide Brings Fine Dining To Rural Encampment

ENCAMPMENT — The foodie desert in rural Carbon County, Wyoming, has a new oasis with the opening of a top-tier, high-end steakhouse called The Divide Restaurant & Lounge.

The restaurant staff includes a former general manager from Brush Creek Ranch, Corey Colwell, who is in charge of the bar, as well as an executive chef named John Keeth, who has previously worked with a celebrity chef off of “Hell’s Kitchen.”

That celebrity chef “could cook good food,” Keeth recalled. “But he had no recipes. He just had, like, 14 random scribbled recipes on various sizes of papers and bar napkins.”

The experience was ultimately so disorganized, Keeth felt he had starred in his own personal “Hell’s Kitchen” episode. He almost quit the restaurant industry entirely.

“It was horrible,” Keeth said. “The most horrible experience ever. I actually went into the oil field after that.”

Keeth’s impromptu return to cooking came about unexpectedly.

It was a late-night call one Friday from the Divide’s owner, Duke Altschuler, inspired by Colwell, who happened to know Keeth and thought he might be persuaded to try again in a more professional venue.

“I stewed on it for a week, and I was like, ‘You know what, I am fired up. I do want to fix that kitchen,’” Keeth recalled. “I was stagnant in life. And there’s no bigger challenge than perfecting a fine-dining restaurant in Encampment, Wyoming.”

Saving Encampment History

Altschuler never planned to own a restaurant in Encampment.

It’s a classic example of how one thing leads to another thing, and pretty soon, the destination is completely new, completely unexpected, and completely wonderful.

After Altschuler retired from the oil field, he had decided to find himself a nice ranch to settle down on, one where he could ride peacefully off into the sunset of life.

“So, I started looking north and west and came across this ranch about 6 miles south of Encampment, and it was exactly what I wanted,” he said. “You stand in the middle of the property, and you don’t see anybody all day.

“And it just had these great Aspen groves, and a lot of lodgepole pine trees standing dead, as well as on the ground. So, it was just love at first sight.”

The property had a 600-square-foot 1880s cabin with no bathroom, no running water and no heat. It was definitely not love at first sight for Altschuler’s wife.

“So, my wife says, ‘I’m not staying here, you’d better get a place in town,’” Altschuler recalled with a chuckle.

A happy wife means a happy life, so Altschuler found a beautiful four-bedroom bed and breakfast that was just the ticket.

“Then somebody said, you need to look at the E&H building,” Altschuler said. “It’s a cornerstone building in Encampment. It’s kind of an icon that needs to be rehabbed.”

The building wasn’t actually in all that bad shape, despite its 1902 roots. Altschuler was intrigued.

“So, I took over the liquor store and I just started to very quietly work on other parts of the building,” Altschuler said. “It’s 12,000 square feet, and everyone in town that has lived here wanted this and wanted that. So, I’m still working on it.”

In the midst of that, the building the Divide restaurant is in came up for sale. Altschuler couldn’t resist taking a peek.

“Bottom line, I just kind of fell in love with it,” Altschuler said.

Still, he would only buy the restaurant if it came with the next-door motel, he told the owners. They were reluctant, but ultimately agreed to sell both as a package deal.

“And that’s really how it all started,” Altschuler said. “I just all of a sudden started getting a vision of what could be done for the town. I think maybe I just needed a project, and I fell in love with Encampment.”

Making An Experience In Encampment

One of Altschuler’s goals for The Divide is to help reverse a 100-year decline that’s seen ever-dwindling population.

That’s been the story of many small towns across America, but Altschuler believes he can help put the tiny town back on the map as a wonderful place to live, as well as visit.

“Encampment’s a beautiful place,” Altschuler said. “The wintertime, we get snowmobilers and skiers and then (in summer) the fishing, the tourism, the bikers and the hikers and bicyclists — between all that, it’s a big draw for the local town.”

But there aren’t many things to keep those people in town, spending their money, for any appreciable time. That’s where The Divide Restaurant & Lounge and the next-door Pine Lodge Motel come in.

Now visitors have a place to stay, a place to eat. They can hang out, spend some time and money in the town.

“I don’t want a mediocre anything,” Altschuler added. “The Pine Lodge is not mediocre. I have had nothing but five-star reviews. And the liquor store, people go in and they go, ‘How the hell can you have Caymus and some of these high-end wines?’”

Altschuler will just smile. It’s all part of the plan to create a destination store, something that can attract people from a distance, because it has things that are hard to get anywhere else.

“Whether they’re hunters, fishermen, tourists, locals, whatever — they come in there and go, ‘Like I can’t get Blantons and you’ve got it here,” Altschuler said. “And that’s what I’m trying to do is find the niche.”

Altschuler believes the work he’s doing is already paying off for Encampment. It’s creating a new vibe that’s attracting others to invest in the town as well.

“We’re really low on housing here, and this guy has teamed up with a local contractor and they’re going to put seven units in here,” Altschuler said. “And they’re not going to be trailers. They’re going to be nice little houses. That’s what’s needed here.”

It’s A Numbers Thing

Altschuler decided he needed to apply the same destination concept to The Divide Restaurant. To remain viable, it has to attract people from a much wider area than Encampment.

It’s a similar concept that the chef at The Bull Pub uses to keep a high-end restaurant going in tiny Cowley, Wyoming.

That led Altschuler to seek out people like Colwell who, in turn, happened to know Keeth.

“So, I’ve known Corey for years,” Keeth said. “And when I learned he was in charge of the front of the house, that was like my deciding factor of, OK, I’m doing this.”

Keeth has only been on the job in Encampment for a few weeks, but said customers aren’t going to notice too many differences in the menu right away.

That’s because the first thing Keeth is going to do is “run the numbers.”

“I’m doing all the bad parts of being a chef right now,” Keeth said.

Unlike celebrity chefs who scribble half-baked recipe ideas on crumpled paper napkins, Keeth knows that it’s going to take a solid plan to maintain a fine-dining restaurant in Encampment.

That’s going to take more than just good ideas. It’s going to take a deep dive into all the numbers.

So, he is measuring exactly how much cooking oil gets used to brush pizza dough, and how much cream and how much garlic goes in the homemade Alfredo sauce. Then he’s testing a streamlined method for that homemade Alfredo sauce, as well as trying it out on the pizza, to see if it will still work in that recipe as well.

In addition to that, he’s also doing a deep dive into which dishes are ordered the most and the least, and how much each recipe ingredient costs.

That will ultimately tell him where the best bang-bang for his shrimp bucks actually lies. Bang-bang shrimp, by the way, is one of the dishes he has already added to the menu, without running any particular numbers.

He already knows from past experience that bang-bang shrimp will be a winner in the little numbers game restaurants have to play to survive.

“My vision long-term is pretty much the same as Duke’s,” he said. “We want higher-end food in a small Wyoming town, a place that you would never expect it. A beautiful establishment, a steakhouse feeling, and higher-end seafood in the middle of the mountains.”

Once Keeth has finished with all the numbers, he plans to do something completely non-intuitive for such a small-town restaurant.

He’s not going to pare down the menu at all. He’s going to expand it.

“The way I picture it is, we will probably be a larger, expanded menu in the summertime months, and then we’ll have to contract in the winter,” he said.

That’s in spite of his personal rule that successful menus shouldn’t change very often.

“It should take an act of Congress to change a menu,” he said. “Once you have a nice one in place in a restaurant that functions, you don’t touch it. But around here, I can picture a seasonal menu being very important.”

How Golf Started Keeth’s Culinary Journey

Keeth, who is originally from Saratoga, spent some time at the Hot Spring Resort back when it was called the Saratoga Inn.

“I really just wanted to play free golf at the Saratoga Inn at the time,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “So, I applied for and got a job with the kitchen.”

Turned out, Keeth was not just good at the culinary arts. He was exceptional. He soon landed a few culinary scholarships that sent him on a different path than the sports programs he had once planned to pursue.

Being well-known in the area will be a big help, Keeth believes. He’s already got friends asking him if he’s going to do certain dishes that they know and love at The Divide.

The answer to that question is usually “you betcha.”

That’s what it takes to draw people from farther away to a tiny town like Encampment. The menu can’t be the typical steak and potato, hamburger and fries. It has to have crave-worthy dishes that people just won’t find anywhere else.

But it won’t just be great food at the Divide, Keeth added.

“I want this place to have live music all the time, especially in summer,” he said. “Our bar has all sorts of custom cocktails. So, this place has a lot going for it, but I want it to be full for lunch and dinner by next summer.

“And I know it’s doable. I already have a lot of friends and family in Saratoga who are going to be coming to this place.”

Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.