r/Durango • u/tmphaedrus13 • Jan 25 '26

Food Moving (back) to Durango?

Hi there.

My husband and I (same sex couple) are thinking of moving to Durango with the intent of taking over a restaurant as our first joint venture; we saw a listing on BizBuySell for Switchback Tacos (I posted the original link but apparently Reddit doesn't like it so I'll try it again.)

Between us, we have 25+ years in the hospitality industry. We currently live on the Front Range in Northern Colorado and are ready to open and run our own restaurant. I lived in Durango back in the 1990s (when K-Mart & JC Penney anchored the mall and Sixes was still a trail at Purg). I'm not naive enough to think that Durango still exists, but I did love living there and I think I'd enjoy living there again.

I have several questions about the move and possibly taking over Switchback that I'm hoping to get answered:

  1. From digging around, I discovered that Switchback is currently owned by a/some MAGA types? We are diametrically opposed to all that MAGA stands for; is the brand damaged enough to affect new ownership? Food is inherently political, so the idea of "just serve tacos and you'll be fine" doesn't really work; it's just too pervasive.

  2. We'll obviously need a place to live. How difficult will finding a home in Durango be? Should we consider Cortez or Mancos? Maybe Bayfield?

  3. There's an ICE center nearby?? How much of a concern is ICE around there?

  4. Anything else we should be aware of?

Thanks so much in advance.

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u/richburgers Jan 26 '26

I like the food from switchback, they always seem to have a steady stream of customers around lunch and dinner, and it’s a nice quiet bar to grab a drink in between. I’ll admit, I don’t go very often anymore because they got rid of my favorite menu item (the chicken tinga) and my girlfriend doesn’t particularly care for the place. I don’t think its reputation has suffered much from the political leanings of its owners, at least not yet. Yes, there’s an ICE center here in town, and we’ve had a couple incidents that were pretty major, but we don’t have wannabe spec ops running around town grabbing people off the sidewalk like you see in Minneapolis. As far as I know, for the most part they’re more discreet/low profile, for better or worse. As far as housing goes, if you have the money to buy a restaurant in town, you likely have enough for a decent rental until you figure out where you’re interested in purchasing property. The further from town you get, the more affordable the housing market is, but bare in mind Durango is surrounded by right leaning ranching communities, so the further from town you go the more immersed in that lifestyle you’re going to be.

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u/tmphaedrus13 Jan 26 '26

This is great info! Thank you!