Ray's Tavern: Green River

Right now I’m sitting at Ray’s, but I am headed for water.
And as far as I’m concerned, I’m headed for the best kind of water—so silty you can’t see your hands or feet once they’re submerged—water churning thick with flash flood run off, running cold with snow melt. Water that’s fed off sweet seeps decked with monkey flowers. Water both public and secret, sluicing over the boat tops of hundreds of rafts and kayaks and at the same time, lapping sensuously at the sinuous walls of slick rock narrows, so tight no human has ever been able to slide between those walls. I am headed for the river.

I have invited myself along on this trip—begged myself a spot—and, thankfully, my friends put up with my presumptions of place and belonging and love me anyway…well, at any rate, they let me come. And so, together with Matt (driving “Ladore,” huge-ass old GMC truck—yes, named for the section of the Green) and Rachel (namer of “Ladore”—sleeping notatall peacefully in the little nest of sleeping bags and sleeping pads made for her by her fiancé) we have made our way this far (Green River) before heading down to Gooseneck State Park where we will meet the 12 (!!!) other people we are heading down the San Juan river with.

Soon we will be a little town unto ourselves, us and the other 12 people we are meeting. A floating town, where we will eat well—float trips, I think, combine the best parts of car camping and backpacking: you get to sleep in the middle of nowhere away from motorized noises and smells and crowds (not counting the throng of 12, of course) and you have the space to bring coolers full of ice, which means coolers full of steak and spaghetti and beer. However, no cooler can preserve ice cream for any real amount of time and so, here we are.

Only to find that Ray’s Tavern, venerable institution that it is, known to river runners for so long and from such diverse arenas that there is a wall in the pub entirely devoted to paddles and ores and t-shirts announcing the names of rivers and boat clubs, has no ice cream. So, although technically Ray’s should be disqualified from my search right off the bat—it can’t, after all, ever achieve trifecta since it doesn’t serve shakes—it does offer a solid substitute in the form of beer. Lots and lots of beer. Lots and lots of beer which the round of cowboys sitting inside have clearly availed themselves of. Their trucks and horse trailers are parked in a circle on the back lot, pulled round like a wagon train, little horse faces peering through domed windows and horse noses poking through small slits in the trailer walls. The back lot used to be a building, you can still see the foundation.

“Used to be” seems to be the key term for the entire block. The strip of buildings across the street used to be a coffee shop and hardware store, the remains of signs pale and washed out paint above door frames. Now, you can see sheep skins hanging in the window. Just south of the strip used to be Frank’s pizza—burnt down two years ago. On the east side of the block there is a corner building, sidewalk strewn with computer screens. Lots of computer screens. And crates, toasters, end tables, picture frames—apparently where yard sales go to die.

In the middle of the block there is what may still be a play ground. It has what used to be a basketball hoop and one of those maps of the United States, painted on the black top. What was the idea behind these maps? Elaborate four square games? Hopscotch? Left foot Colorado, both feet Texas, right foot Iowa, casting stones from state to state. This map is painted almost entirely pink, so it’s hard to tell where one state leaves off and the next begins. I don’t see any children to speak of, but it is Sunday morning in Utah.

The heathens have found a different meeting house. The corner where Ray’s sits is bustling. It’s hot but we sit outside—we’ve been in the car for hours already. The sign says “a place for everyone” and although it may be cheesy to say so, Ray’s is just that. Sitting on the back porch in the slender shade of the ceiling cross-beams, I watch the Harley rider next to me lean over to the two guys she is with saying, “chopped the thing right off. She wasn’t sure if she wanted them to take both of them or not. She just went in for a check up—and the next thing she was layin’ on the table you know. He didn’t help with any of it.” She is both casual and animated as she tells her story, her leathers bunching up and creasing as she leans forward to gesticulate and relaxing and smoothing out as she sets back, arm draping over the back of the chair next to her. Her friends don’t respond as she talks. All I can think of looking at them is how hot they must be in all that black leather.

To my left is a little, may I say totally yuppy in the way that only Utah and Colorado yuppies look, family. Two small kids and a mom and dad, all wearing new looking North Face and Patagonia shorts and capeline shirts with crocs. I’m guessing they are the owners of the spiffy looking Volkswagon van in the parking lot, little bikes strapped to the front, and I’m trying not to dislike them…if I did, it would just be because I want their van. Next to them is a group of ladies looking like they are all on a women’s day out—maybe the Great Old Broads for Wilderness setting out on an adventure. They all have short cropped hair held in place by visors, strong muscular looking arms, and pedicured looking feet. “Annette’s kids just got married. She’s at the wedding that’s why she couldn’t come.”

Its only when I step into the bar to use the bathroom that I see all the cowboys. Well, first I see their hats. There are so many of them that their broad hats fill up both rooms of the bar, all leaning low over their plates and beers and sodas, faces turned just slightly as they listen to each other make wise-cracks. No one looks that serious. None of them look up when I walk past.

Back outside I wait for my food. I have to wait a while but in all fairness, they are very busy. Although I did look over the menu, I am a woman on a mission—with a one track, burger track, mind—so I don’t really remember much of it. I do remember that they have coleslaw as a side option, which we order along with our fries, and apple pie, which we don’t order because I don’t want to wait for it. It’s a little sad. I really love pie.

And then the moment arrives. The food is here. So here’s the skinny: the coleslaw? Pass. The fries? The mural painted on the wall of the patio advertises “homemade fries.” Perhaps at some time that was true, but Ray did not make these. While Ray’s does get points for using steak-cut fries with the skin still on, the inside tastes slightly of the freezer and has that styrofoamy texture of processed-beyond-recognition potato. The burger: decent and good sized for the price. The bun tastes like bread instead of chewy gluteny fluff, you can actually sink your teeth into it a little instead of just gumming it to death. It also has a good amount of sesame seeds. The patty is good, it tastes like real beef instead of mashed soy product and it’s thick and sufficiently juicy. The tomato is…well, store bought in May—what do you expect? The lettuce is crisp and the onion is good. I ask for extra pickles, but that’s just me. The cheese (I always get cheese) is cheddar and tastes like cheese! Which is a plus because not all burger cheese does. So all in all I would eat here again. Both for the totally decent burger and (especially) for the superlative people watching.

A little bit of useful info...

Region: Right smack in the middle of Utah

Contact Info: 25 Broadway, Green River, UT 84525 435-564-3511

Rating (out of 5):
Burger ☼☼☼☼ Fries ☼☼☼ Shake N/A

YOU MAY WANT TO VISIT RAY'S IF YOU…
* are headed down Labrynth canyon or just got off Westwater
* are on your way to Moab for a jeep rally or marathon
* just finished Elk hunting in the Book Cliffs
* are climbing at the East Slabs in the Swell
* are passing through Green River just to buy watermelon

Introduction: Trifecta?

First a note on “Trifecta”:

After years of eating off linen table cloths—caribou rounds with a sage blackberry sauce, muscles in saffron broth—courtesy of my dear adopted auntie Noreen (actually Noreen hated being a woman so always dressed as a man. She had a little rough cut head and wore silk lime green shirts and—even though she was filthy rich— men’s trousers from Penny’s. Whenever we went to dinner together, people assumed we were a May/December couple….well, she was 83 and I was in my twenties so more like May…Ming Dynasty. Then when I shaved my head waiters and hosts at the many restaurants we frequented simply stared. We do, after all, live in Utah.) I have discovered that I really really love burgers. And I really really love fries, salty greasy make my fingers smell so I want to lick them…and I really really really love ice cream. Together. All at once. Bites of one then bites of the other then fries dipped in the shake then the burger dipped in BBQ sauce and on and on. So this is my “trifecta.” Burger. Fries. Shake.

But not just any burger, fries and shake. I want mine served from a small town “Dairy Treat” by a waitress popping her gum. I want to be surrounded by cowboys in tight jeans after work and rough necks and couples that look way too young to have that many kids, and dirty hippies just off the trail (guilty) and river runners just off the river, so dehydrated their toes are curled under their Chaco’s (also guilty). Throw in a bunch of bikers drinking milk with their burgers and a flock of bleached-out German’s and I know I am in my happy place. Give me my burger on a stomach so empty from days in the bottom of a canyon or on a rock wall that I would think cardboard was flank steak. Give me “trifecta” as an after taste to adventure and make me want more.

When I emerge from the secret back countries of Utah, I emerge starving. As soon as I pull off whatever godforsaken, rutted, washboardfromhell excuse for a road I’ve been bumping along for the last hours and hit pavement, I want to EAT. However, starving as I am in these situations, a bad burger is very disappointing—almost tragic (the bit about thinking cardboard was flank steak earlier; a total lie). So I have joyfully taken it upon myself to thoroughly scope out the scene. Take what is to come as a travel log/dining guide for small town Utah. A, “I just got back from running Cataract/sitting in Crystal Hot Springs all days/backpacking Coyote Gulch/swimming through the Black Hole and damnit, I need a meal to put meat back on my bones!” whereto finder.

Sometimes too, food is not enough. I would also like to have a view, all kinds of views… old store fronts and maple lined lanes and Burr Trail slick rock accented by little irrigated green jewels and far reaching desolate plains rolling of towards the San Juans and the Haymaker Bench riding my back. I want to know I am in Utah and not any where else. I want to know I am in my adopted home. This wacky state that I love so much.


So here goes…