The crew behind the smoke.

One chef wrote the recipes. Four kitchens cook them every day. The pitmasters, sous chefs, cart leads, and pastry hands below are the reason a 14-hour brisket lands on your tray at the right time and the right temperature.

Grouped by the location they primarily run. Some of these bios are placeholders while the team signs off on their copy — the real ones are coming.

The Cantina

The flagship. Sit-down, full bar, live music Saturdays.

Chef Eve Natasha

Chef + Founder

Owner, founder, head chef, and the person who wrote every recipe at every Stage Stop. Six years old when the ranch opened in 1993. Smoking brisket since fourteen. Culinary-trained in Denver, line-cooked downtown, came home, built the trailer that became The Cantina.

She still works the line on Saturdays. She tastes every sauce batch before it ships to the trucks. She picks the wood — post oak for brisket, pecan for ribs, apple for poultry — and she picks the breweries we park at, not the other way around.

Fun fact: Smokes a 14-hour brisket on her day off just to see what happens with a different wood blend.

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[REAL NAME — sous chef at The Cantina]

Sous Chef

[REAL BIO — operator: replace with the actual short bio when this team member signs off on their copy. Two short paragraphs. First paragraph: kitchens they came up in, why The Cantina. Second paragraph: what they own day to day — the sides program, the sauce batches, the Saturday line.]

Fun fact: [REAL FUN FACT — one sentence the operator collects in the bio interview.]

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[REAL NAME — pastry + sides lead at The Cantina]

Pastry + Sides Lead

[REAL BIO — operator: replace with the actual short bio when this team member signs off on their copy. Two short paragraphs. First paragraph: pastry background, how they ended up running the sides station at a smoke house. Second paragraph: what they own — peach cobbler, banana pudding, smoked honey sundae, the cornbread, the slaw.]

Fun fact: [REAL FUN FACT — one sentence the operator collects in the bio interview.]

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Mash Mechanix

Second-ever brewery partnership. The one that proved the model.

[REAL NAME — pitmaster at Mash Mechanix]

Pitmaster

[REAL BIO — operator: replace with the actual short bio when this team member signs off on their copy. Two short paragraphs. First paragraph covers how long they've been on the pit and what they ran before Stage Stop. Second paragraph covers a specific cook or shift they own — Saturday brisket, the burnt-end window, the Friday rib pull.]

Fun fact: [REAL FUN FACT — one sentence the operator collects in the bio interview.]

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Old Colorado City

The Westside stop. Historic district, walkable, good for a long Saturday.

[REAL NAME — pit crew lead at Old Colorado City]

Pit Crew Lead

[REAL BIO — operator: replace with the actual short bio when this team member signs off on their copy. Two short paragraphs. First paragraph: how they got to the Westside trailer and what they did before. Second paragraph: their shift, their crew, the thing they don't compromise on (probe placement, rest time, sauce-on-the-side discipline).]

Fun fact: [REAL FUN FACT — one sentence the operator collects in the bio interview.]

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Urban Animal · Star Ranch

Permanent food cart at Urban Animal's southside taproom. Open daily.

[REAL NAME — GM at Urban Animal · Star Ranch]

General Manager

[REAL BIO — operator: replace with the actual short bio when this team member signs off on their copy. Two short paragraphs. First paragraph: how they run the cart and what restaurants they came from. Second paragraph: how they think about the brewery partnership, trivia Mondays, run club Tuesdays, the day-to-day with the Urban Animal team.]

Fun fact: [REAL FUN FACT — one sentence the operator collects in the bio interview.]

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Want to join the crew?

We hire across all four locations.

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