Food and beverage operations are winding down at Deer Valley Resort’s East Village, rounding out the first season of its semi-permanent restaurant at the base of the East Village Express Gondola.
Like any “discovery year,” the breakfast and lunch restaurant, dubbed East Village Restaurant, gave skiers a preview of what dining could look like at the resort’s expanding base area, said the resort’s executive chef, Peter Menteer.
During the season, it operated from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. with lunch service blending Deer Valley classics like turkey chili and a salad bar, as well as new items like sweet potato fries and a soba noodle bar designed to entice crowds to the new space.
Overall, the restaurant did pretty well, Menteer said. The lack of snow was the obvious challenge, but another hurdle was the fact that many people didn’t know about the establishment.
For anyone parking on the East Village side, it’s hard to miss.
The shuttle drops off and picks up at one of the tent’s entrances. From the outside, the tent-like Sprung structure looks pretty simple, but it’s temperature-controlled inside and decorated with images of the resort’s slopes. On the route to the gondola, the tent opens to a patio with high top tables and lounge chairs, and Deer Valley bunting similar to Silver Lake Lodge decorations crisscross the area. During lunch hours, the patio also serves lunch out of a Deer Valley Chicken Shack and a beer trailer.
A cold soba noodle bar, where diners could customize a noodle salad, was a unique option at the East Village Restaurant this season. Credit: Jonathan Herrera/Park Record 
For breakfast, assorted pastries and coffee are available for skiers starting at East Village Restaurant. Credit: Jonathan Herrera/Park Record
With the warm weather, and as the international workforce starts to leave town, they’ve decided to stop serving food inside after breakfast, which runs from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m., Menteer said. So the chicken shack and the beer trailer on the patio will be the only options from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on that side of the mountain until the resort officially closes. Closing day is still set for April 19.
Executive Sous Chef Sam Phelan said the operation falls under his jurisdiction and is the smallest team with eight culinary staff and about 15 front-of-house employees. But because it’s the newest restaurant, it has the nicest kitchen, he said, pointing out automated fryers that can start and stop cooking cycles on their own.
The culinary team also creates fun weekend specials, another way they tried to drive traffic to the location, which Phelan said also gave them a chance to branch out with dishes like bánh mì sandwiches and quesabirria tacos.
Menteer and Phelan both said feedback was generally positive, most commonly that the space was a lot nicer on the inside than expected. Once people found where it is, they generally came back, which the chefs said was also a good sign.
Slices of carrot cake are also sold at the restaurant, alongside other desserts and breakfast pastries. Credit: Jonathan Herrera/Park Record 
Of course, East Village Restaurant serves the classic Deer Valley turkey chili, as well as the option to make it chili fries. Credit: Jonathan Herrera/Park Record
The East Village Restaurant will return next season, and possibly a few more, as the resort finishes up construction on both the Park Peak Lodge at the top of the gondola and the main building at the East Village base. Park Peak Lodge had originally planned to open partially for the 2026-27 winter season, but it is now pushed back to a full opening for the 2027-28 season, Menteer said.
So the plan, per usual, is to further fine-tune the East Village Restaurant to meet the needs of skiers. Part of that process is to incentivize skiers to come down for lunch and draw traffic away from a packed Silver Lake Lodge.
The important thing for next year will be to have more snow, Menteer said. But despite Mother Nature’s fickleness this season, the chef praised the resort’s snowmaking team for keeping so much open in challenging conditions.
“All in all, I think this year was very successful. It could have been a lot worse,” he said.