So Long, Mount Air
Photography: Mark Maziarz
After weathering 30 years of Park City’s bust and boom economy, Mount Air Cafe served its last cup of coffee and slice of coconut cream pie this past spring, bringing an end to a local institution. Like most diners, the cafe boasted no-frills booths, simple fare and busy, efficient waitresses. Yet, for faithful regulars and employees alike, the long-running establishment consistently dished up much more than breakfast, lunch and dinner.
“Every town should be lucky enough to have a Mount Air Cafe–I hate to see it go,” commented Jess Reid, who’s been eating “the best club sandwich in town” there for 28 years. For Reid, the cafe represented a down-to-earth balance to Park City’s increasingly glamorous image—a rural, real kind of place, where people recognize each other over an affordable meal.
“It’s kind of like a ‘Cheers’ deal,” explained Joe Kukal of Kukal Cranes, who’s been savoring chicken noodle soup alongside fellow construction workers and Sundance movie stars alike at the cafe since the ’80s. More than being a convenient place to park heavy machinery, at Mt. Air, no one felt out-of-place. “You can go in there with your boots all muddy,” he said, indicating the comfortable atmosphere so many locals enjoyed.
Debbie Goff, the cafe’s longtime manager (and niece of owner George Polychronis), has been as much a fixture of the place as the tempting pies her grandmother taught her to make. She’s fond of her regulars, with their quirks and routines. Some of them she knows by name–like Lynn Oswald and Dean Berrett, who occupied the fourth window booth every morning. Other customers she just knew by the omelet or sandwich they ordered every time they sidled up to the counter. “They’re kind of like family,” she said of her regulars, “I’m going to miss a lot of them.”
Polychronis, whose Park City businesses have ranged from a grocery store to a gas station, opened Mount Air Cafe in 1976. “He liked to smoke a cigarette, have a coffee and a piece of pie and, at the time, there wasn’t anywhere to do that,” explained Goff. Shortly after the cafe opened, it suffered an extensive fire, the result of a drunken driver’s collision with a gas line. Luckily, the setback merely paved the road for renovations, and the cafe was up and running in six months.
Over the years, Mount Air flirted with minor changes (like being open 24 hours or adding eggs benedict to the menu). Longtime locals recall the days the servers sported tan pinafores with ruffles and bicentennial-inspired liberty bells, or red and white striped shirts and wraparound skirts (which matched the red booths at the time). Waitresses like Val Thurnell and Mary Yance dominated the personality of the cafe for years; Thurnell was perhaps best known for singing to customers and escorting ducklings back across the street to the golf course.
Goff credits her uncle with the cafe’s survival through the town’s fickle economic swings. “You’d have to go a long way to find a better businessman than he,” she said. Aside from his savvy business moves, Polychronis also served as a quiet good Samaritan, giving those “down on their luck” a meal and sending them off with a couple of bucks, according to Goff. As a result, for some customers, Mount Air became something of a haven.
Yet, as waitress Karen Webb put it, despite the fact that she’ll miss the place, “Life goes on.” With George Polychronis embarking on retirement, the restaurant slated to replace the beloved cafe will remain within the family. “It will sort of be a blend of Mount Air and Squatters,” explained Jeff Polychronis (George’s son) of Salt Lake Brewing Company. Polychronis and his partner, Peter Cole, plan to renovate the space and open the new establishment this August (with the working name Squatters Roadhouse Grill).
Despite the promise of a different sort of brew at 1900 Park Avenue, locals will remember Mount Air Cafe as a home away from home, a place filled with familiar faces and a warm-hearted spirit tucked beneath a veneer of business-like hustle and bustle. Mount Air, we’ll miss you.
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