Gordon Montana
Photography: John McCarthy
On his way to Okinawa in 1969, Gordon Montana found himself momentarily contemplating the beauty of Salt Lake City. The young MP had no idea that 28 years later, he’d be right back in the place he was just passing through. Today, the Vietnam vet, ex-cop, former country radio disk jockey and small businessman is one of the most recognizable front-of-house characters in Park City’s restaurant scene, keeping “the love” alive as the maitre d’ for Easy Street Brasserie. Due to his propensity for bear-hugging customers and friends, locals call him “the hug master.”
Though he started in the food service industry as a busboy at age 10, Montana has always had more than one career brewing at a time. When he’s not embracing guests and smoothing the wrinkles of customer service at Easy Street, Montana is running two side businesses and tending to rescued mustangs at his newly acquired ranch.
Born and raised in Detroit, Montana graduated from high school and went directly into the Air Force. He joined the ranks of the military police, guarding missiles in Montana and then keeping GI’s in line in Saigon. After three years abroad, he returned stateside and continued in his role as MP at Eglin Air Force Base near Pensacola, Florida. After completing his service, he stayed on at the base as a federal corrections officer dealing primarily with white collar criminals at the base’s prison.
“It was the most boring job. I was used to action–car chases, being shot at,” Montana laughs. The job, however, was not without interesting characters. “[Gordon] Liddy was a person I saw every day. I heard the Watergate story every day. Each day it was different,” recalls Montana with a smile.
It wasn’t just the rush of being a cop that Montana missed; he also missed feeling like he was making a contribution to the community, showing young people that crime was not their only option. “I don’t like bullies, and I look at criminals a lot of the time as being bullies,” he said. “Someone has to step up to the plate and make sure the community’s safe.”
In the early ’80s, Montana returned to his hometown, working felony arraignments and felony lock-up. At the same time, he took up a gig as Detroit’s first black country-music-disk jockey for a local radio station. “I asked, ‘Does it pay money?’ They said, ‘Yes.’ I said, Yeehaw!”
In between spinning disks and keeping thugs off the street, Montana found time to drive the secret service in presidential motorcades (with security clearance intact, he still receives the occasional Pentagon summons to assist with presidential visits to Utah). Montana also took on a job as food and beverage manager for J. Walter Thompson, and worked as a bouncer for a downtown watering hole, where weapons were checked at the door, and his best friend and soon-to-be wife tended bar.
“I took multiple jobs because I didn’t want my wife to have to work and go to school at the same time. That’s just too much,” he said. (Montana knew only too well about the stress of balancing work and school–when he was studying for his FCC license and career juggling, he himself had suffered a heart attack).
Montana and his wife Cynthia relocated to Utah eight years ago. The move was decided by a single dart. “It was all decided with a dartboard,” recalls Montana. Given Montana’s line of work, inmates often blamed him for their incarceration. “Frankly, since I’d stopped working in law enforcement in Detroit, too many people recognized me. I had to leave,” he explains. He placed a map on the wall and he and Cynthia threw a dart that pierced Salt Lake City as their destiny. South Jordan became home, and Montana tried unsuccessfully to retire.
After a week of retirement, Montana was back in the employment game, this time starting his own staffing company of bartenders and chefs in full tuxedos, Tux Time Staffing. At a private party, he encountered Easy Street owner Bill Shoaf, and before long, he had donned a hard hat during construction and established himself as the restaurant’s first general manager.
“It only took me a few months to realize that I was an awful manager,” he says with a chuckle. Montana has spent almost every day since working as the restaurant’s maitre d’. “I have a love for the restaurant business. It’s a dying art in the United States,” he says. “Dining is a gorgeous thing if it’s done right.” Though it may seem a far cry from fighting crime, Montana relishes the restaurant action and finds that he puts his skills to work. “My training as a cop, along with having an eye for detail, has helped me out a lot in this business.”
In addition to restaurant work, and running Tux Time Staffing and an equipment rental company (Park City Party Rental), Montana has been orchestrating a move to the country. Having recently acquired a Coalville ranch, Montana has grand plans for his time in the great outdoors. He seems most thrilled by the prospect of moving rescued mustangs to his new five- acre home. The former cop has been taking in sick horses for the past five years, a result of having served meals for a month at a Bureau of Land Management round-up.
“An old cowboy came up to me and said ‘Mr. Montana, here’s your tip’ and handed me a horse named Galaxy,” he recalls. With tears brimming, he recounts the sick horse’s last 72 hours before dying. “She changed my life,” he says. Since the BLM has taken to calling on Montana whenever they come across a sick mustang in the desert, he now tends to four horses (as well as two dogs and 25 rescued cats).
To add to Montana’s list of heroic deeds, this past summer, he became a cancer survivor. “It’s heavy duty when somebody looks you in the face and says, you’ve got cancer,” he says. Yet, he continues, “If God chose me to go through that, I’m honored.” Now cancer-free, the outpouring of support Montana received from the community during his ordeal has confirmed Montana’s sense that Park City is home.
Few Easy Street regulars know that the smiling man who checks to make sure their dining experience is up to snuff has security clearance, an ear for country music and a soft spot for ailing mustangs. Montana seems to know almost everyone who walks past the restaurant–and their dogs as well. “I’m in love with Park City and the surrounding area. I’m truly smitten,” he says. He’s equally passionate about a job he says he’d do for free if his wife would permit it. His lifetime of training has prepared him for the task. He says, “I think I have a PhD in people and love.”
Determined to “share the love,” Montana is here to stay.
Always amazed by the rich and colorful lives of Park City’s characters, freelance writer Jane Gendron feels honored to tell the stories of kind and witty people like Gordon.
Editor’s Note: Easy Street restaurant will be temporarily closed for the next year due to construction. They’ll be back though, so keep your eyes open for Gordon then!
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