As it re-envisions the amenities at Lookout Mountain, Denver’s parks department wants the next vendor by Buffalo Bill’s Grave to showcase Native American cuisine and culture.
Denver Parks and Recreation made a formal appeal for vendors selling indigenous food and merchandise last month, according to the request form available online. The city expects to select one business in the fall to lead concessions at Lookout Mountain, on 987 Lookout Mountain Road in Golden, for the next three to five years.
Helen H. Richardson, The Denver PostBill Carle, the former proprietor of the Pahaska Tepee Gift Shop and Cafe, shows a historic photo. The city is seeking a new vendor to take over the space. (Photo by Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post)The decision to spotlight indigenous cuisine and products is somewhat of a course correction for the mountain’s tourist attractions. Along with the burial site of William “Buffalo Bill” Cody and the monumental views of the Front Range, a museum adjacent to the currently shuttered concessions is dedicated to the 19th-century traveling marksman and his Wild West touring company.
“I think some of the storytelling about Buffalo Bill has really been from Buffalo Bill’s perspective and the European American perspective, and this is a great opportunity to balance that out,” said Shannon Dennison, director of Denver Mountain Parks. “It’s a way to tell a broader story.”
The Carle family ran concessions as the Pahaska Teepee Gift Shop and Cafe for nearly seven decades, featuring Buffalo Bill memorabilia and other goods that called back to old Westerns and included some Native American stereotypes, such as tomahawks and cigar store Indians.
Bill Carle, who lived above the store from 1993 until the end of 2024, told The Denver Post last year that he removed the tomahawks in an effort to “sanitize” his offerings. “Having grown up here and being surrounded by cowboys and Indians my whole life, it just doesn’t hit me that any of our items are insensitive,” he said then. But in the end, he felt like they “just want us out.”
When the city closed the 103-year-old building last year, which forced Carle to move, a spokesperson told The Denver Post it was because it “has seen a lot of deterioration in its operational uses — the plumbing, septic system, things like that. … We need full, unobstructed access into the building in order to look at all of that and see how much it can hold.”
Parks planners expect the incoming vendor to run concessions at Pahaska (the Sioux nickname for Buffalo Bill) on “a more limited scale” as they embark on a longer rehabilitation of the park, according to the vendor request form. The city also expects the eventual vendor or vendors to find their own financial backing, install their own kitchen and dining equipment, and oversee repairs and general maintenance of the concessions area.
Dennison said the focus on indigenous culture came from visitors’ desires for a more “authentic” experience atop Lookout Mountain. The city is encouraging applicants who can also program educational events on indigenous culture.
The menu at Pahaska, “should reflect traditional and/or contemporary Native American dishes, utilizing purposefully sourced ingredients whenever possible,” the form reads.
The retail area will feature “indigenous-made products, locally sourced and/or crafted goods, and educational and park-related materials,” such as Native American jewelry, art and history books. Buffalo Bill’s Wild West-themed goods are still expected to line the shelves, as Dennison and the parks department still want the concessions to tie to the original theme of the park.
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“It’s a pretty niche service, so at this point I’m not sure what to expect,” Dennison said. “I’m just excited to see what all is out there.”
In its last three years of operation, the Pahaska Teepee Gift Shop and Cafe grossed an average of $1.5 million in revenue, according to the parks department. Average annual water bills amounted to $12,700, just one of the utility costs along with electric and septic.
The parks department will issue an official request for proposals in the summer and execute a contract in the fall, according to the vendor form.
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