Nanci Campbell has eaten at the Arapahoe Cafe & Pub for roughly 60 years.

She first heard about it in the late 1950s, when, as students at the University of Colorado Boulder, she and her friends would make day trips to Arapahoe Basin Ski Area — the only ski resort in Summit County at the time. She remembers being told to look for the restaurant “with all the pick-up trucks out front.”

“We had no money. We’d camp out with people and make do somehow and go to the cafe occasionally for dinner or a snack,” which usually consisted of a hamburger and fries, Campbell said.

After settling into her own home in Dillon in the 1960s, Campbell said she would take her two children to the cafe for breakfast every Sunday after church.

“We’d sit at the counter, the three of us, and the kids would order a pancake sandwich which was a pancake with an egg and bacon in between,” Campbell quipped.

Decades later, Campbell joins a chorus of longtime patrons in saying goodbye to one of Dillon and Summit County’s most beloved eateries. With potential redevelopment plans looming in the area, the property’s landlords, who also own the Best Western Ptarmigan Lodge next door, told Arapahoe Cafe they intend to sell the restaurant and would not be renewing its lease.

On Oct. 15, the Arapahoe Cafe’s final day in business, guests reminisced on personal memories of the restaurant as they enjoyed a final meal.

“It’s celebratory and sad all at the same time,” said Lindsay Rader, a Silverthorne resident who worked at Arapahoe Cafe for the past 13 years.

“It’s been a very emotional time for me. It’s such a family here. You get hired onto staff, and you’re part of it, which is what was so great about this place,” Rader. “It was like working with your brothers and sisters every day.”

As a patron “you feel like you’re part of the family too,” added Keystone resident Heather Ulrich, a longtime friend of Rader. Ulrich said she met Rader through a mutual friend during a road trip and recognized her as a server at Arapahoe Cafe, where Ulrich regularly frequented.

“We really did become friends through this place,” Ulrich said.

For out-of-towners who’ve made Summit County a regular destination, Arapahoe Cafe was always an integral part of their visit.

“When I come up to the mountains, I come up for breakfast,” said Lynne Mathews, who lives in Firestone, a town just north of Denver. “I’ve been coming here for years, probably decades.”

Matthews said the restaurant “probably has the best corned beef hash in the world” and added that she’ll feel “a little bit lost” without it.

Wendie Fleming and D. Haven, a couple who’ve been visiting Summit for more than 20 years, said Arapahoe Cafe has always been a staple for them.

“The food is great, the people are always just fantastic, friendly, open. And I love the old historical photos all around,” Haven said.

Beyond being a reliable place to grab a bite, the cafe is an embodiment of living history, they said. Originally built in the 1940s in what is now considered the old town of Dillon, Arapahoe Cafe was moved up the hill in the early 1960s to its current location on Lake Dillon Drive after the old town was flooded to create the Dillon Reservoir.

“There are so few historic structures that have been saved in Dillon, and that’s why we so wish this structure could be saved,” Fleming said. “For Dillon, the character and what draws us here is the historic nature.”

Dillon’s town council has floated the idea of relocating the building and preserving it as a historical site, even if it no longer operates as a restaurant.

While longtime owner Doug Pierce said he is supportive of protecting Arapahoe Cafe’s storied structure, without the bustling of servers and guests and table conversations, it won’t be the same.

“You can save the building, or build a replica, but I think the spirit of the Arapahoe Cafe will be gone forever,” said Pierce, who has owned and operated the business since 2002 when her purchased it alongside his late wife, Deb.

Running the cafe “never felt like work” but “a place to go,” Pierce said.

“I think it’s always been important that we didn’t want it to just be a restaurant, we didn’t want it to just be a job, we wanted it to be a community,” said Bonnie Lehman, Pierce’s daughter who has helped run the business in various capacities. “And it was important that we found people who shared that vision with us.”

As Pierce and Lehman prepare for what’s next, they said they are incredibly grateful for the patronage they’ve received over the past years.

“We’ll miss them all. We’ll miss our employees. We’ll miss our guests, our family,” Pierce said.

And as history has shown, the cafe’s fate may not yet be sealed.

Campbell, the Dillon resident who visited the cafe in its old location in the 1950s, said if the business has survived relocation and new ownership before, it could do so again.

“I have great hope,” she said. “But we never know, do we?”

Published on SummitDaily.com.