Off Menu with Steve Queen of Johnson’s Station

Longmont is about to experience a new callback to the kind of mid-century diners road trippers of the past loved. A new gathering space — part restaurant, part bar, part event space, and part time machine — is coming to Prospect in the next few weeks. Johnson’s Station is the reenvisioning of a 1950s-era service stop that fed hungry travelers mentioned by Jack Kerouac in “On the Road.” Chef Steve Queen is excited. With good reason.

The restaurant is housed in an intriguing building — a service station, which was moved from Longmont’s Main Street to the Prospect neighborhood. It sat for years behind fencing until it was financially redeveloped. Now, it’s been revitalized and Queen gets to lead the menu development and kitchen teams that will take diners back in time.

Queen plans to marry key parts of what’s important to him in cooking, with elevated versions of what 1950s travelers might have expected to be passed across a diner service window. Burgers. Hot dogs and hot chicken. Ice cream Cocktails. Smoked pork sandwiches. Classic Americana fare.

This kind of food feels fairly expected, but Queen has plans to elevate it. “I’ll never throw ingredients into something for the sake of throwing thirty things there. I’m very forward and when I describe something I’m cooking, you’re going to taste what I’m describing. An orange, a carrot, ginger sauce will taste like those things, in that order. It’s stripping away filler and distractions. I like things flavorful. Reduced down.” To further illustrate his point, he talked about how he makes hot chicken. Marinated in buttermilk and then made with both butter and lard, it’s spicy with a crust that’s present but not overwhelming. It is also about texture. It just also happens to be gluten-free.

Aspects of the Johnson’s Station environment play to Queen’s personality as well. The space calls back to some of his most formative years in high school, where he not only discovered he appreciated cooking through a class, he also discovered he liked photography and architecture. “The exposure to it is what makes the difference. There’s so much that you’re not exposed to in high school as far as careers. The things that stuck with me the most from those days are those things that were hands on and used in real life, long term.”

Of all the things he was fortunate to try in school, cooking ultimately stuck with him. He went to Johnson and Wales in Florida, then worked at a series of restaurants including in places owned by his parents. Like a lot of other people, he came to Colorado for the mountains. But, unlike a lot of people, he cooked in Cherry Creek. Then he worked for River and Woods owned by the same group, Working Title, that owns Johnsons Station.

Throughout his journey, there wasn’t one person that was his mentor but he said he felt that it was to his advantage. He focused on purely developing his own techniques based on his instinct. What was consistent was how he pushed himself to learn more. His philosophy about restaurants is that there’s always more to learn. Culinary professionals should be looking deep into techniques, ingredients, and how to do things better. There’s always something to know, or know more deeply.

And now it appears his next learning chapter is in Longmont, in an Americana-road trip fueled (pun intended) preserved service station.  One can only imagine the rabbit holes of learning and creation he has going forward into the future, to diners’ benefit.