ESCALANTE – Who wants to open a new business during a pandemic?
It’s likely not anyone’s first choice. But as sometimes happen in life, plans get underway, things are set in motion, and next thing you know your launch date coincides with a global calamity.
Fortunately, for the business that will be Georgie’s Outdoor Mexican Cafe, the restaurant’s carry out model fits the situation perfectly. And Georgie’s established reputation from her former Main Street Escalante restaurant, Georgie’s Corner, means a lot of her previous customers are long overdue for a Georgie’s Mexican food fix.
“We’re doing this for the locals right now,” said Georgie Lister, “Because there isn’t anybody else here.”
Georgie and her husband Frank Lister will operate the new restaurant out of a state-of-the art food trailer—orange, you can’t miss it—at Canyons of Escalante RV Park. Appropriately, their launch date is Cinco de Mayo (May 5).
“I’m a little nervous,” said Georgie, glancing at construction debris surrounding the trailer. “But I think I can do it.”
So why the food trailer, and why now? Long story short—and with major gaps for the sake of space—Georgie Lister (formerly Costigan) ran Georgie’s Corner from 2005 to 2011, at the location currently owned and occupied by Mimi and Ed O’Kane, of Mimi’s Bakery. Some time later, she was working at Canyons of Escalante RV Park, met a guy (Frank) who was in town for the Escalante Canyons Art Festival (he makes art maps), and they ran off and got married. “We got married after two months,” says Georgie. For a time, they both moved to Mancos, Colorado, where Frank lived.
Frank’s connections to Escalante already ran rather deep. His parents, Robert and Florence Lister, were well known archaeologists with the University of Colorado.
“My dad ran excavations at Anasazi State Park in the 1950s, and in 1966 through’68 during summers, he was under contract with the University of Utah and ran the salvage archaeology for Glen Canyon Dam. They would work down there for weeks, and this was the jump off spot—Escalante. So as a kid I spent summers here. This place, it’s in my DNA,” said Frank Lister.
Georgie and Frank both enjoyed Mancos. The house they lived in had been his parents’. “It was a cool house but it was big, it was like a museum,” said Georgie. So, with downscaling in mind, they decided to come back to Escalante, to Georgie’s smaller house.
“I loved it there, but this was still home to me,” said Georgie.
Georgette had been thinking about doing a food truck for a while. “It was probably a couple of years after I closed Georgie’s. I just missed it so. And I was working for Ryan [Leffler] here in the RV park and he asked me, ‘Have you ever thought about doing a food truck?’ And I said, ‘Yes. I think about it all the time.’ So we started discussing it in summer of 2017.”
Here they are, ready to open. Basically, Georgie’s Outdoor Mexican Cafe menu will be readily recognized by locals who knew her former restaurant. “It’s pretty traditional, fresh, as much local as possible,” said Georgie. “And we’ll be reasonably priced, we don’t want to be too expensive—especially now when nobody has any money!” she said.
Georgie’s Outdoor Mexican Cafe will open Tuesday, May 5, 2020. Located at 495 W. Main St., Escalante. Hours: Monday through Saturday 7am-4pm. “For now, until we see how things shake out,” said Georgie. Take out, curbside, and deliveries available. 435-826-4682.
—Insider
Published in the April 30, 2020 issue of The Insider.
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