Dearest friends,

If you had the chance to read our last newsletter, you know that in late November we came to the conclusion—based on encouragement from many of you—to reach out and ask for help, in a big way. (And if by chance you haven’t read that newsletter, here is the link again)

If you did read it, and you are among the more than three thousand people (many of you anonymous) who have donated to our fundraiser, we want to say that we are moved, humbled, and tremendously grateful. 

When we launched the gofundme, we knew, of course, that we had an exceptionally loving and supportive community, but we were completely shocked when our initial goal of $324,000—an auspicious number, a symbolic starting point, and an amount we felt would alleviate our immediate challenges and ensure our short-term survival—was met in under a week. We remain in a state of astonishment, because even after meeting the goal, many of you are continuing to contribute to the fundraiser. This ongoing help is extremely supportive. With every additional donation that comes in, we’re able to take a deeper collective breath and envision solutions for a host of complex, longstanding problems. Every contribution helps pave a brighter future for us and our team.

If you haven’t had the chance to donate, and you’d still like to, here’s a link. And we’d be very grateful if you would share our fundraiser with anyone who might be interested in the opportunity to help. We’ve decided to keep the GoFundMe active until February 21st, which is the Tibetan lunar New Year. On that day, we’ll hang prayer flags at the farm and restaurant, make aspirations, and dedicate the merit to all beings (including you, of course)!

Over the last three weeks, we’ve been astonished to receive hundreds of handwritten letters, calls, emails, and texts from you all, and we’ve seen countless comments, posts, and shares on social media. We want you to know that we’ve read and heard and taken to heart every single word. Your kindness has touched us deeply. Indeed, in some ways, the encouragement and care you’ve sent our way has been equally valuable as the financial solutions you’ve offered, because your words have lifted us up. They’ve given us renewed confidence, enthusiasm, and purpose. Many of you have shared tender memories with us, and made plans to return to the restaurant in the future. We’ve also received letters and donations from people who have never visited HBG, but are now committed to making their way to Boulder. And some of your have told us that even though you can’t travel to Boulder anymore, you still want us to stay in business.

The big message we’ve absorbed is that it’s important to you that we keep trying—and we’ll confess, it was a message we needed to hear. If you contacted us and we haven’t responded yet (chances are high we haven’t), please know it’s because we’ve barely been able to get back to anyone, due to the massive volume of correspondence! Your collective support has overwhelmed us—but in the most beautiful possible way.

We’ve also been extremely busy with the online store! Wowza! So many of you have done your holiday shopping with us, and we can’t thank you enough for supporting and sustaining us in this beautiful, interdependent way. We want to remind you that due to our remote location, shipping can take longer than it might from an urban center. Gift certificates and signed cookbooks make fabulous presents, and they’re the most expeditious items for us to send. We will be taking a break from work and shipping over the holidays so our retail crew can rest and recover (they have been working so hard!) but the online store will remain open, and we’ll resume shipping the first week of January.

On December 29th, we’re thrilled to be supported by a benefit organized by Torrey House Press and authors Terry Tempest Williams, Brooke Williams, Pam Houston, Regina Lopez-Whiteskunk, Craig Childs, and Amy Irvine for a virtual evening of stories and tributes to Hell’s Backbone Grill— food, footsteps, and friendship. We are excited and profoundly moved that these beautiful friends (who also happen to be some of this country’s greatest writers) have created a literary evening in our honor. You can join us online by registering here.

Finally: Thanks to you, we’re planning to reopen for dinner on March 17th. And more good news: We’ll be moving to an online reservation system soon! Look for this to be implemented sometime later winter; we’ll let you know as soon as it’s live. Stay tuned for more info through our website and Instagram.

Between now and when we open our doors in March, we’ll stay busy— putting your extraordinary outpouring of generous funding to good use to help us address some of the obstacles that have arisen during the last three years, and turning our attention to our spring menus and hiring for Season 24. We’re looking to add 10 to 12 skilled and heartful full-time people to our team, in a range of front of house and kitchen roles. If you’d like to work with us, or if you know someone who might, please point them in our direction. Information about the application process can be found on our website.

We wish we could summon the perfect words to express our gratitude. Perhaps a story, instead: Some of you may remember, because we wrote about it in our second cookbook, that during a typical season at HBG, we play a game with our staff that’s similar to Secret Santas. We call it Hell’s Angels, and we pull names from a hat, and for about a week, we treat one another to gifts and anonymous acts of cheer. However, this past season was so challenging that for the first time ever, we just didn’t get it together to play the game. Instead, it seems the game played us. You all became our Hell’s Angels.

Thank you for showing up in such a big way. You’ve made it possible for us to open our doors next season, and you’ve given us relief and hope for the future.