{"id":97657,"date":"2018-10-02T14:33:33","date_gmt":"2018-10-02T20:33:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/durangos-claim-to-most-restaurants-per-capita-holds-true\/"},"modified":"2018-10-02T14:33:33","modified_gmt":"2018-10-02T20:33:33","slug":"durangos-claim-to-most-restaurants-per-capita-holds-true","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/durangos-claim-to-most-restaurants-per-capita-holds-true\/","title":{"rendered":"Durango\u2019s claim to \u2018most restaurants per capita\u2019 holds true"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"\"
David Holub\/Special to the Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Many cities have a trademark boast-worthy phrase they can\u2019t help but talk up to every tourist or newbie. \u201cWe are second to New York in galleries,\u201d Santa Fe says. \u201cThe blues were born here,\u201d Clarksdale, Mississippi says. \u201cWe have more restaurants per capita than San Francisco,\u201d Durango says.<\/p>\n

At least that\u2019s what Durango Arts Center Director Peter Hay told me my first week in town. I was impressed by the \u201cstatistic.\u201d Except, he didn\u2019t know exactly where he originally heard it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt might have been Wikipedia,\u201d he said. \u201c\u2026 Or maybe the tourism site?\u201d<\/p>\n

But he knew he read it somewhere. Hay said living in a place with abundant and diverse food options was a priority, so before moving to Durango, he did his restaurant research.<\/p>\n

On its surface, the statement is questionable. While there is no doubt Main Avenue is lined with places to grab a bite, it is possible to commit them all to memory. One would need a Rain Man-like mind to remember, much less dine at, all the hipster gastropubs, craft brew pubs and endless taquerias in the Bay Area.<\/p>\n

Emily Black, a Durango Doughworks employee, is also familiar with the phrase. She worked as a raft guide over the summer for Mountain Waters Rafting and said it was one of the Durango factoids instructors taught her and other trainees to rattle off to life-vested tourists. Black said her instructors mentioned that for a long time, the phrase was repeated without any knowledge of its truth, but years ago, someone crunched the numbers to verify the claim.<\/p>\n

Black\u2019s instructors might have read a 2012 Durango Herald article<\/a>, which uncovered the work of someone who was assumed to work at the Durango Area Tourism Office. That mystery Durangoan called the San Francisco Travel Association to find the numbers and do the math. After discovering Durango was, in fact, No. 1, the SFTA changed its materials to say the City by the Bay has the most restaurants per capita of \u201cany major city.\u201d<\/p>\n

And the claim still holds up today.<\/p>\n

According to the most recent U.S. Census Bureau and health department records, there are an estimated 18,465 residents in Durango and a total of 187 restaurants in the Durango area \u2013 dining establishments with a Durango address. (San Juan Basin Public Health classifies restaurants as retail food establishment preparing or serving food in individual portions for immediate on or off-premise consumption. This technically includes most grocery and convenience stores and hotels that offer a continental breakfast.)<\/p>\n

This would mean there is about one restaurant for every 99 residents in Durango. Including the 23 mobile dining units in town, it would be about one per 88 residents. The numbers are not as strong as the 2012 data, which estimated one food establishment per every 51 residents. Even though we\u2019re slipping a bit, Durango still solidly defeats the Golden Gate City.<\/p>\n

There are 884,363 San Francisco residents and 4,734 dining establishments (not including the 271 food trucks.) That equals to about one dining establishment for every 187 Bay Area resident and one per every 176 when including food trucks. It is an improvement from 2012\u2019s one for every 227 residents.<\/p>\n

David Woodruff is the president of the Durango chapter of the Colorado Restaurant Association and general manager at El Moro Spirits and Tavern. Like Hay, he doesn\u2019t remember where he first heard the claim, but that hasn\u2019t stopped him from repeating it. \u201cIf we can beat out a large metropolitan area (in restaurants) per capita, I will gladly spout out that statistic,\u201d Woodruff said.<\/p>\n

Woodruff attributes the number of restaurants in the area to the interests of Durango residents and the tourists who visit.<\/p>\n

\u201cDurango is well-traveled; we\u2019re well-educated and we know what we like,\u201d Woodruff said. \u201cPeople are more interested in what is going into their body and where food is coming from. (People) are genuinely into what is going into the craft. \u2026 That is why you are seeing this renaissance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Woodruff thinks the declaration will continue to cement itself in place, with new concepts on the delicious horizon, such as Bird\u2019s fast-casual chicken joint<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a great time to be a consumer, especially in Durango,\u201d Woodruff said. \u201cYou have all these great ideas coming forth from entrepreneurs. There is a lot of really fun stuff coming down the pike.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Don\u2019t worry, our bragging rights are safe<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":97658,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5843],"tags":[438,450],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-97657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-living","tag-food","tag-restaurant-and-catering"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97657\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97657"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=97657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}