On July 4, the Big Red F Restaurant Group lead by CEO Dave Query opened its fifth Post Chicken & Beer restaurant in the historic carriage house of the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park. It’s part of a larger development there called the Stanley Film Center, a $40 million development in Estes Park by by Grand Heritage Hotel Group, which owns the Stanley Hotel. An homage to the horror film genre, the new center includes a theater and meeting space. It’s an ode to the famous Stephen King book “The Shining” and the subsequent blockbuster 1980 film of the same name.

In an interview with the Denver Gazette, Query talked about how Post saved Big Red F, labor shortage struggles and expansion plans for the company, which also operates Jax Fish House, Centro Mexican Kitchen, Lola Coastal Mexican and The West End Tavern in Boulder. It will open its sixth Post location in Fort Collins Labor Day weekend.

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Q: The first thing I noticed when going to the Big Red F website is the call for workers to staff your new Post restaurant. How’s the labor shortage affecting the company?

A: I don’t see that changing. A lot of people are saying as soon as the (federal government supplemental unemployment insurance) checks stop in September, everything is going to get better. Excuse my language, but they’re high as a kite. This will carry on well into next Spring. Those who are not working don’t want to work. They’ve figured out a way to couch surf and will plan to ski or go to Canada this winter – like this is the time to adventure. It’s really challenging getting people back to work. … In Estes Park, we are open for dinner only and we’re dark two nights a week. We’re hoping to get to operating seven nights a week. When you’re a new restaurant opening, you want to be open for lunch, dinner, brunch. You want to open early and stay open late. But we’re so short staffed, we can only do Thursday through Monday. It’s not just restaurants, and not just Estes Park. This affects that company that processes chicken, the lumber yards, almost every industry is short-staffed right now.

Q: What strategies have you used to address that worker shortage and get employees?

A: We started tip pooling. The lack of equity for the kitchen staff has been there since the beginning of time. They show up before the front-of-house folks, leave after they do and yet make a third of their salary. So we pool the tip and pay dishwashers and kitchen staff a livable wage – like $22-$24 an hour. The cooks get almost $30 (an hour) with that system. But it comes from the front of the house. So we’ve lost some snipers, but we re-formed with a group that appreciates unity, comradery and the nature of tip pooling. It’s been successful with that shared culture.

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Q: Tell me how you got involved with the Stanley Hotel improvements.

A: (Grant Heritage Hotel Group CEO) John Cullen and I first spoke about four years ago. At that time he was looking for someone to come up and run the catering for the Stanley. We never could make that work, but two years ago he got the idea of refurbishing the Carriage House. You know it was named after Stanley Steemer company. They would park in the Carriage House. It was basically a barn. There were holes in the walls and bats were living in the rafters. It was a big breezy barn. He asked: How about this? I said ‘I love it. Let’s do it.’ It took us a year-and-a-half to get it built, then six months of planning. We opened July 4.

Q: Will the restaurant have horror-themed menu items? I saw you make a joke about customers not liking “bloody chicken” on the menu.

A: Every market has a different demographic, but the beauty of the Post is it doesn’t matter – 98.9% of people love fried chicken. The fact it’s gluten-free with no sacrifice to quality and flavor increases that demographic. I would not have opened high-end there, or done a JAX. We wouldn’t have done white tablecloths. We needed something that required more attention on the food. There’s a desire for affordable fried chicken built for families. … It’s been great. We opened quietly, with no advertising, and got a lot more locals than we thought we’d get. … That will help us shoulder the colder months, making the locals happy. There’s already an enormous tourist base.

Q: How bad did the pandemic shutdowns impact Big Red F?

A: Who knew fried chicken and beer would be in such demand during a pandemic? It literally carried us through. We had to close all our restaurants and furlough 670 people. Our chefs and mangers piled into four Post locations, and the West End in Boulder, and ran those five. We rode on the shoulders of fried chicken and BBQ. It was chaos during the pandemic. We started our own delivery operations and avoided those high-cost delivery services. We kept the staff working and had to figure out that deliver scene – we’d never done that. We started reopening the JAX in June and July (2020). The Posts were life savers.

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Q: What’s next for Big Red F?

A: We’re opening Red F Catering and Provisions soon. We bought a food truck, and instantly launched that. We do a lot of catering for non-profits and events. We’re working on a bar in Boulder and looking for new locations for other restaurants. We’re in the restaurant business, this is what we do. Everyone’s going to get knocked off that bike, surfboard or skis. You need to get back on. Dust yourself off and get back to doing what you do. … We learned important lessons and it’s made us, in some ways, smarter and more successful as a restaurant company. … I think everyone got a little fat and lazy before this happened. For us, we realized how much harder we needed to work in the processes. You do something repetitively for 10-20 years, you tend to stop doing it with the same intensity.