Taste of the Month: West Side Tavern with Wes Isbutt

I last caught up with Wes Isbutt, owner of West Side Tavern in Longmont, in August 2025 for our Indulgences issue. Wes—a four-time restaurant owner with 26 years of experience from living in Las Vegas—is full of anecdotes and insights. So if anyone has an idea of “the Taste of the Month,” it’s him.

When we sit down together, this time on an unusually warm night in January, I ask him what’s been going on. He grins at me.

“With the world, with West Side Tavern, with food?”

I can’t help but laugh and shrug because, fair. Where do you begin with what the “Taste of the Month” is?

“It’s hard out here,” Wes says. “The cost of food is crazy now. Restaurants will have two choices: raise prices or cheapen the quality. And I can see who’s choosing which. More places will have to close. Automated service is becoming more of a thing. I don’t want to look at my phone to order food. I want to be one of the last places in the country that holds out for what the finer things in life stand for.”

I ask him how he feels about accessibility to “good” food.

“Texas Roadhouse turns thousands of tables every day. But what’s your experience there? It’s accessible, but is it good?” Wes says. “When I think of the best meals I’ve ever had, it’s because of the atmosphere I’m in, the people I’m with, the unexplainable thing we all go looking for. The better things in life can be accessible too, so I have to ask: what are you choosing to enjoy?”

He says it’s like film photography.

“It’s hard to pick up and tricky to learn, expensive to get into. But the ones who want to do it, they’ll find a way—and when they get it, they get it,” Wes explains. “That’s my advice to everyone: ‘Rock your food.’”

It’s a quiet Tuesday night at the West Side Tavern. A couple laughs over a bottle of red wine. At the bar, two brothers from Denver sit together.

“They drove all the way up here from Denver,” Wes says. “Brother and brother from out of town. One just had a baby. They’ve been coming here for a while because they know we have the best f***ing whisky selection around.” Wes pauses thoughtfully. “It’s wholesome. These experiences don’t have to be expensive. It’s not something any “where” can just create. But we’re always going to keep trying.”

So, maybe the Taste of the Month is enjoying the finer things. Consider your intention. Is your food a matter of convenience, comfort, or both? Don’t cut corners, even when it’s hard out here, because what you’re passionate about is going to carry you forward.

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