Kit Carson has its first restaurant in over two years. It’s serving much more than just lunch.
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KIT CARSON, Colo. — Things move quickly in the town of Kit Carson.
Each day, the number of semi-truck tires roaring down Highway 287 greatly exceeds Kit Carson’s approximately 250-person population.
Trucks typically pass through the mile-long town in about a minute before returning to the expansive plains, after which it will be another 20 miles or more before the next town appears.
Residents of Kit Carson believe there is more to their town than what truckers might see each day. The community centers around the local school, home to the K-12 Kit Carson Wildcats, the Kit Carson Museum and what once was the Trading Post restaurant.
Yet when the COVID-19 pandemic wiped out both the Trading Post and the local grocery store (the Kit Carson Market) locals were left without a place for shared meal, absences that worried more than just a few empty stomachs, but threatened the economic survival of Kit Carson as a whole.
For lifelong Kit Carson resident Debbie Mitchek, the Trading Post meant home-cooked meals, fresh-baked pies and a community gathering place, particularly for her father.
“It was a highlight every day to go out there,” said Mitchek. “And I don’t know what [my father and others] talked about… but it was an [enjoyed pastime] of his to sit with people, talk with people, share, listen.”
“We didn’t have anywhere to eat or talk or anything. There was nothing to do here in this town,” said Paul Mitchek, Debbie’s younger step-brother who was an underclassman in high school when the Trading Post shuttered.
Debbie and Paul grew up working on Mitchek Farms GP, which primarily grows wheat, corn and sorghum among other feeds. They are both second generation farmers, following in the footsteps of their father, Ervin Mitchek, who founded the farms when he was only around 16 years old, according to Paul.
Ervin stayed connected with the tight-knit Kit Carson community. He frequented the Trading Post to stay in touch with neighbors and talked about building a playground-shed to entertain kids after school.
And when COVID-19 put the Trading Post permanently out of business, Ervin saw an opportunity.
“He really knew this town needed something,” said Paul, “and [the Bin Inn] was for sale, so he kind of put it in his mind that this was something that could help the community.”
The Bin Inn, originally known as The Good Shepherd, first opened in the late 1960’s as a small, family-owned drive-in diner called Shepp’s Drive-In. The original painted lettering, now a faded red running over a small drive-through window, still remains on the side of the restaurant.
Over the years, the diner expanded to include a single-story, 15-room motel; a dirt parking lot with space for cars and semis; and a small conjoining residence. Shepp’s Drive-In grew into a slightly larger restaurant, though it was only occasionally operational depending on whether a member of the family was free to cook and serve food.
About 10 years ago, the family decided to halt operations in the restaurant and the motel, and everything comprising The Good Shepherd was put up for sale.
“I could see why my dad ended up with the idea of buying this place,” said Paul. “He was a good businessman, and he’d always been wanting to help the community.”
Ervin never had the chance to make an offer.
In early 2023, Ervin died after a years-long battle with cancer. His wife, Maria, died from cancer just four months prior. Paul was starting his senior year at Kit Carson High School when his parents passed.
Paul wasted little time after. He regularly attended town council meetings and realized that if he wanted to see change in Kit Carson, he would need to take matters into his own hands.
“Nobody was doing anything to make it happen,” said Paul. “There was a lot of thought, but not a lot of action.”
Paul had been working on his father’s farms for his entire life. He worked alongside his father and his older step-brothers, learning how to fix and operate the heavy farm machinery.
By the time he was five, Paul was already learning to drive, and the growth and accomplishments he saw in himself throughout his early farming years inspired personal, and eventually entrepreneurial, confidence.
“That kind of opened my mind, ‘Hey, what’s my barrier here?’” said Mitchek.
“And, well, I guess there is none.”
In April of his senior year of high school, Paul used a combination of his own earnings made selling hay bales as well as money left by his parents to buy The Good Shepherd motel for about $250,000.
He recruited high school friends to gut the dilapidated flooring and walls, and he teamed up with his family, including his step-sister Debbie, to contract workers to help refurbish the newly-renamed Bin Inn.
Debbie, who is now in her late 60s, ended up taking the lead on much of the renovations while Paul continued working on the family farm. She realized a skill and passion for the work, and not long after the motel began accepting room reservations, Debbie turned her attention to fixing up the restaurant.
“I look at it like a service to the community,” said Debbie. “It’s a great thing to have a place to enjoy being together and eating… and it was important to [Ervin] that people had a place to eat.”
The Kit Carson Café stands about 50 yards away from the motel, the Bin Inn. The café was included in the purchase of the motel, which together became the Bin Inn LLC.
The Kit Carson Café opened at the end of August, offering build-your-own paninis, hamburgers and home-made desserts with “only fresh, real ingredients” according to Debbie, who shaped the menu according to dietary standards realized during her time working in agriculture.
While the café has already begun fulfilling a restaurant’s most basic role — serving food — many locals have underlined the additional benefits that come with new business.
“When you live in a community and you don’t have, say, a grocery store or a restaurant, you’re not going to shop local or stay local. You’re going to have to travel and go far away,” said Amy Johnson, the chairperson of Kit Carson Rural Development, a nonprofit focused on spurring economic activity in rural eastern Colorado towns.
“By having a restaurant within the community, now people can stay and shop local and spend their money here. And that just builds up the community.”
Amanda Montgomery, another lifelong Kit Carson resident, remembered both waiting tables and hanging out in the Trading Post through her time at Kit Carson high school.
“Having a restaurant offered jobs for high school students,” said Montgomery. “As a kid in high school making extra money was huge… and it taught me how to balance my work and school life a lot, which helped me in college.
Montgomery used to spend time at the restaurant as well because apart from school, “there was nowhere else to hang out.”
Montgomery now works as a manager at the Kit Carson Café, and within only a month of being open, she already has a few devoted regulars, like the older men who come in for “their coffee and their cinnamon rolls” each morning.
In addition to local customers, Montgomery has come to appreciate the travelers who pull off of Highway 287 — which runs right next to the café — for a bit to eat and a bit of conversation.
“They ask questions about the town… and it’s neat to teach them about our community,” said Montgomery. “People love hearing about the small town and how people live in it.”
“And I don’t really have much of an answer other than it’s a great community.”
Debbie is currently on the hunt for additional workers to help operate the Kit Carson Café’s new brick pizza oven, a much-demanded addition to the menu.
Paul continues to work on the farm while helping as needed with the Bin Inn LLC.
He turned 20 in early October.
“He’d probably tell me I’m crazy,” said Paul, thinking about what his father would say if he were alive to see the family’s accomplishments.
“But I think he’d be proud of what we’ve done for the community.”