Consumed

Pioneers relied on the covered wagon to help them start new lives in the West. A century and a half later, Randy and Rita Sorenson identify with those early settlers. The couple used a covered wagon — and an equally vintage method of cooking meat over mesquite wood — to start fresh lives of their own.

In 1995, the Sorensons left the comforts of Simi Valley, California, and Randy’s steady job as a mechanic for the great unknown of Colorado. Randy, an outdoor chef whose grill skills had thrilled family members for years, vowed that their new start would begin at his smoker. Begin there, but quickly spread to a covered wagon, which Randy built in the driveway of the couple’s Highlands Ranch home, irritating neighborhood-covenant enforcers in the process.

The wagon embodied the Old West Bar B Que handle that Randy had selected for his venture. “I’d never been in the food-service business before, and I wanted to do something different,” he says. “I told the neighbors, ‘It’ll be done by the time you get an attorney; just let me finish it.'”

Finish it he did, and that first covered wagon was put to work at the mouth of Waterton Canyon, where wafting mesquite smoke attracted a steady stream of post-hike customers.

Today Old West has four signature wagons, which sell enough barbecue to keep eighteen people — as well as the Sorensons and two of their four children — working full-time, six months a year. The other six months, the Sorensons travel and visit their other children and grandchildren back in California. The wagon train now grosses half a million dollars in annual sales. “When I look at what we’ve done in just a few years,” Randy says, “it’s pretty amazing.”

The wagons work festivals across Colorado, from the Greeley Stampede and Fort Collins’s New West Fest to A Taste of Colorado, the Douglas County Fair and the National Western Stock Show. The bulk of Old West’s business, however, comes from a stand at Six Flags Elitch Gardens, where its smoked meats wow visitors hungry for a taste of the Wild West.

The Elitch gig is a scream. The wagon is tucked away in a corner of the park, beneath the towering loop of the Sidewinder. The Troika twirls within a couple of feet of one of Old West’s three smokers, and the Sidewinder’s track is just a bone’s throw from the barbecue stand.

“What better place to work,” Randy says, his statement punctuated by the screams of a cargo of Sidewinder riders hanging upside down a few dozen feet over his head. “People are here to have a good time.” A carload of those people drops down from above and whizzes away, and a few minutes later the people fly past again, this time in reverse, mesquite smoke in their noses, smiles on their faces. “When you’re a mechanic, people don’t want to see you,” Randy points out. “Here they’re happy to see you, because they know they’re going to get something good to eat.”

Old West’s eating options begin with the company’s trademarked Steak on a Stick, a half-inch-thick slice of mesquite-grilled “choice” quality steak, cooked to order and served on a wooden skewer. Sausage also gets the grill-and-stick treatment, as does grade-A pork pulled from shoulders smoked at 225 degrees for twelve to fourteen hours. The second-best seller is a hickory-smoked turkey leg given a rub of salt and pepper, 45 minutes over mesquite and a dash of Old West’s original barbecue sauce. That sauce is a mouth-massaging blend of sweetness, spices and vinegar (tempered by puréed peaches) that lives up to its description: “A little sweet, but comes back with a bite.”

Two kids in Detroit Red Wings caps are sitting under an Elitch’s umbrella, gnawing those turkey legs down to bones and sinew. Jim Norman, who’s at the amusement park with his wife and three sons, holds a leg in his hand, turning it back and forth like a jeweler eyeing a precious stone. “I’m looking for some additional meat here,” he says. “It’s delicious.”

“My biggest reward is watching the people come back with a smile on their face and ask for more sauce,” Randy says. As if on cue, a teenager walks up to the stand and politely asks for another squirt of leg dressing.

But a day at the park is no walk in the park for the Sorensons and their staff. In front of the barbecue stand, the temperature hovers close to 100. Behind the stand’s canopy, a meat thermometer dangling from a rack reads 118 degrees. “A lot of people think this is easy,” Randy says, sweat rolling off his tanned face, a Padron cigar between his teeth. “But it’s hard work. You have to have the passion to do it.”

Rita Sorenson is sweating at the cash register, fumbling with an electric fan. “We just get out towels, put some ice in them, put them around our neck and keep going,” she says.

To keep the business going, the Sorensons are ramping up their sauce-selling efforts. At Old West’s commercial kitchen in Castle Rock, the staff produces jars of two rubs used on the smoked meats, as well as an expanding line of bottled sauces. There’s a version laced with caramelized onions and roasted garlic, a spicy honey-barbecue sauce that delivers more heat and less sweetness than Old West’s mainstay, and a new, sugar-free sauce.

Like Old West’s meats, the condiments are made with quality ingredients. “Some guys, they cut corners and think they’re making good money,” Randy says. “But if you don’t have a good product, people don’t come back to you. I spend the money for the quality, and I move so much volume that I can still make money. Ninety-nine percent of our customers are repeat customers. When people see the wagon, they know what they’re going to get.”

So while his customers enjoy Old West’s barbecue, Randy savors the sweet smell of success. “Look at us,” he says. “We’re a little covered wagon in a big corporation, sitting in the middle of the amusement park. We’ve come a long way.”