Minturn Country Club

We’ve been heading to the Minturn Country Club for over 25 years, and the quality and value is just as good today as it was in the past. We had a party of 6 including 2 4-​yr. olds, and had a great time. We were seated promptly and dug into the all-​you-​can-​eat salad bar. Then we picked out or main course for the evening, I chose the prime steak, and set about cooking on the grill. This could have been the tastiest steak I’ve ever had, tender, flavorful and juicy. And… cooked to perfection! We all loved our food, the service was friendly and knowledgeable, and the bartender even came over to perform several magic card tricks for the kids. Once again, a fun, memorable and delicious experience!

Ok, but definitely more of a unique attraction than a fine food establishment. A bit pricey too. Steaks were very expensive and yet you had to cook your own. I asked the server if we could split the tip since I cooked my steak. The meat was a nice cut of beef and the truffle fries were very good.

The wait staff was friendly but the meal gives the 2 stars. Salad bar was horrible. Who serves iceberg lettuce at a salad bar… absolutely no nutritional value. Cucumbers were frozen.

Almost like a hole in the wall restaurant, but the city itself seems a little rundown. We came in the off season so it was pretty dead. Our server was friendly and fast. Free open salad bar with meat purchase. All add-​on sides cost. We got the veggies which is just from the salad bar so seemed like a rip off and the twice baked potato which was delicious just brought out pretty cold. Choosing and cooking our own meat is pretty fun. We had the ribeye and filet. Ribeye was o so good and juicy!!! They give you a couple condiments like salt and pepper to choose from. The owner was there and supposedly he does magic tricks but he just sat up at the bar for our entire stay. I was disappointed to not see some magic. I would recommend this place just for the experience but if you are not a professional meat griller dont expect much. We also got the potato dessert and that was pretty good so make sure you save room!

Cool place in a tiny town! Unique experience. Meat was very good, we had the NY strip. Creamed spinach and twice baked potatoes were yummy. Overall, I feel like we could do this at home but thought we should try it once
Service was on point! Waiter was attentive and friendly!

I used to come here all the time when I was young and it was always A TON of fun. Came back when I was older and it’s still amazing. This place mixes fun and great food and an awesome atmosphere. I live in California now and always make sure I come here when I visit colorado

We walked into the Minturn Country club thinking this would be a fun family experience but boy were we wrong. They sat us by the toilets to start. We asked to move to a nicer location which seemed to throw the staff for a loop. We asked for wine recommendations and our waiter touted an overpriced and bad bottle of California wine. My wife then asked where the meat came from but our waiter couldn’t give us a direct answer. That is when we noticed the the toilet paper stuffed into the walls as i guess insulation? The gimmick is you choose your own meat from their meat cabinet but you would pay dearly for some cuts that looked like they were from Soylent Green. We politely begged off before we got to taste any of this and went into downtown Vail.

It is a different dining experience and it was great! Loved it. Homemade crab cakes, filet mignon, twice baked potato, and the minturn tater. Awesome!

T.J. and the staff at Minturn Country Club provided us with the perfect rehearsal dinner. We had our own private room and the menu provided to us beforehand was super affordable. If you’ve never been to the Minturn Country Club, you should try it out! It is a grill your own meat joint, so instead of people sitting at tables and just talking to those surrounding, everyone was up at the grill chit-​chatting and getting to know each other. Overall an excellent time!

What a fabulous place. Great food. Great atmosphere. Servers all go out of their way to please. A great shout out to TJ. Owner, host, and perhaps the best magician in the area. He spent time at our table with my wife and son. He made our evening very special. THANK YOU. A place you really need to visit.

Really cool place — first time I’ve ever experienced a grill your own steakhouse, and it was great. First you hit up the salad bar, grab some Texas toast and throw it on the grill, and then you choose one of the many steaks and cool it however you want. Nice ambience too, and a decent enough beer selection. Seems like the place to go in Minturn, unless you want Mexican which is supposed to be good at the Minturn Saloon down the street.

This place really is as fun as you make it, and we had an AWESOME time. For those ridiculing the fact that you cook your own steak here, well thats the fun of it, you should know what you are getting into before you book a reservation at a ’ grill your own steak’ restaurant. They offer a complimentary salad bar and texas toast to slap right on the grille, I couldn’t get enough of the bread! And the steaks came out amazing. What a fun place for a date night !

Such a fun restaurant. A concierge recommended it to my parents 22 years ago and we have gone every vacation since! Such a fun experience, especially when you have a few drinks. The food is awesome. This time I went for the small NY strip which was great, some salad, spinach, asparagus, and a double bakes potato. The Texas toast definitely is the icing on the cake. This place is fun, family friendly, well priced and delicious.

This place came with high reviews from friends and family… we were very underwhelmed. We were greeted by an exuberant manager when we entered but things went downhill quickly.
We were stuck in the back of the restaurant and had to flag down our waiter several times. Our waiter seemed to be annoyed that we were dining with two children, ages 10 and 7. We didn’t understand how this place worked or what to do after we ordered our drinks! It turns out we weren’t properly informed.
The salad bar was great and grilling our own steaks was a lot of fun. We got back to our table with our steaks and once again had to flag down service staff to inquire about our side items and ask for more drinks. Our side items arrived after most of us were nearly done with our steaks. The side items tasted good but were obviously supposed to come out 5 minutes before our waiter brought them, they were cold.
We were going to order desserts but decided to spend our money elsewhere. When we got the bill we were surprised to find out that they charge for refills. I’m more than happy to spend $ 150 in your restaurant but felt gouged by having to pay for 6 sodas to the tune of roughly $ 18. Our server did not tell us that they charge for refills and when I inquired he said that «the bartender makes us».
We waited up front upon exiting looking for someone to talk to but never saw a manager other than our initial entrance. It could have been that they were just having an off night. This place has a lot of potential… we’ll never be back to find out. Dine elsewhere!

The quirkiness of this place might win you over. This place is as fun as you make it. Be prepared to make your own food. You pick out your steak, fish, or chicken, then grill according to their tips. Salad comes with the meat but sides are extra. If you’re looking for a random experience contrasting the posh Vail dining take a little drive to Minturn.

«Welcome to Minturn Country Club. Please walk to the counter and order at the Meat Market. You can pick your meat and sides, and then start cooking.»
Wait. What???
Yes, for $ 40 (price of a nice filet, I opted for the $ 19 NY strip) you too can cook your own dinner at this cozy, mountain restaurant. I mean, cooking my own steak is pretty sweet and all, but for forty bucks I expect a skilled chef to juggle razor-​sharp knives and slave over my entrée for at least 20 minutes. Not at Minturn Country Club, no sir. You gotta EARN that steak, son!
Okay, gripes about cooking my own dinner aside, this place was pretty cool. The food was good and the atmosphere «good olé mountain town.» The creamed spinach and potatoes were great with the steak and wine. I’ll be back, but next time with tempered expectations!

As a man, I take pride in the ability to cook meat well. Here I was able to showcase this on $ 2.99 steak night. It was an awesome coincidence to be seeing a friend in Vail on this most special night.
The meat selection was better than I expected for a $ 2.99 cook your own steak establishment, but a NY strip felt like a touch of home… I cooked my meat superbly… Maybe… And made some Texas garlic toast, had two beers and walked away with a full belly for no more than $ 12.
The locals that crawled out of their shanties to make a $ 2.99 steak were entertaining, drunk, and obviously never used a grill before, but it was OK… Because I paid $ 2.99 for a NY strip!
You most likely wouldn’t catch a self respecting individual here cooking/​ruining their own steaks here on regular nights were you pay $ 20+ for a steak. But I’d go back on $ 2.99 steak night in a heartbeat… Even if its just for the experience its well worth it.

I try to stop in and cook my own steak but this restaruant is usually closed when I’m passing through. I had the opportunity to treat some friends for dinner here but we arrived on $ 2.99 night.
Wholly nutsacks, the place was packed and most of the regular menu items were not available. The meat selection was pretty poor and the grill was overloaded with people (mostly kids) who have never cooked their own steak.
I won’t return on $ 2.99 night — it sucked.

I hadn’t been to a «cook your steak yourself» place since I was a kid and when my sister suggested it I was hesitant but do yourself a favor, put that hesitation out of your mind and go have fun in this place. It is a blast.
You are probably in the area for winter or summer activities around the ski areas but are tired of the restaurant scenes so go see a real 1800’s Colorado town of 1,000 people that is only one exit away from Vail and Beaver Creek off 70.
For appetizers you have to try their stuffed mushroom caps that arrive to your table in a baking dish where the mushrooms are filled with parmesan stuffing and baked in a creamy chicken based sauce. Very rich and very tasty. Another must-​have is the newly added breaded zucchini appetizer, it was crispy with a light crumb breading served piping hot with a chilled sauce, delicious.
For dinner take the ticket your waiter gave you and go up to the butcher counter and pick a prime bone in ribeye or filet, a prime NY strip or for less costly and lighter meals get the marinated chicken breast, skewer of shrimp or kabob of steak and veggies or one of several fish they have daily.
They give you cooking time instructions on a large board on the wall near each of their two grills. A home made teriyaki sauce is available on the grills. You can see that the hot parts of the grill are in the center so you can back the temp off by pulling things to the edges.
The Country Club has a full bar and very reasonably priced wine list along with any kid friendly beverage you would need.
Locals tips — 1) Get the salad bar not because you want a salad but so you can take the pineapple, mushrooms and onions from the bar and grill them along with your meal. 2) In the off season they offer a $ 2.99 steak (not going to be one of these great prime ones) in order to keep the crowds coming in and I am told that the grills are 2 people deep during those times.
All in all the Minturn Country Club is the opposite of a country club, its fun not stuffy, it can be a good value if you want it to be and it can be hilarious to watch friends and loved ones take control of the grilling.

This not a Country Club at all. There is no elite membership. There is no tennis. There is no pool. There is no golf. There is no dress code. There is no gift shop. It IS pricey, but hey, who comes to a place called «Country Club» expecting «inexpensive»? Please, don’t be that moron.
Plain and simple, this is a meat PALACE where the entertainment and the appeal is YOU cooking your enormous meat at a grill surrounded by friends and family. Sure, you could be doing this at home, but you are probably on vacation in Beaver Creek or Vail, so you are far, far away from your own grill. Besides, how many times have you let friends and family cook on YOUR grill. (We all know that you have «one hottt grill».)
So, to recap, it IS pricey AND you cook it yourself. Get over it. Who comes to a place where everyone KNOWS you cook it yourself and then complains that they have to cook it themselves? Please, don’t be that moron.
I dined at the Minturn Country Club. Ten of us, 5 adults and 5 kiddos — two 5-​year olds and three 10-​year olds. Potential train wreck. One five– year old spilled a large trough of ketchup on the floor and then crawled through it. One ten-​year old took a picture of said five-​year old, wouldn’t show it to her, removed the memory card, acted younger than the youngest child, threw a temper tantrum…
Our waiter, Evan, was there with a stack of napkins, fresh beverages, a fork to replace the one dropped into the ketchup on the floor… He was graceful and made sure every age was satisfied by the end of the meal.
I saw a lot of families here, cooking together, laughing together, and doing what families do together. I saw an engaging bartender entertain 5 hungry children with his sleight of hand as we were waiting for our drinks to arrive. Magical.
You come here for the entertainment of watching family and friends cook large slabs of great meat themselves… family style sides, family style atmosphere. The only one you have to blame for a bad steak is yourself. You want it Medium Rare? Eight minutes a side. You cook it. You want a $ 120 bottle of red wine at the fine wine price of $ 60 (sounds like «turducken») that you can sip on during the entire cooking-​eating-​observing-​ketchup-​temper tantrum time? You drink it.
Skip the salad. It is included with the entrée and all-​you-​can-​eat but I took one glance and kept walking. Uninspired light green lettuce not befitting the history of Minturn (in the 1920s Minturn was known as the «lettuce capital of the United States»), bacon bits, chickpeas (as opposed to those fashionable «chic» peas), cottage cheese… YaaaaAAWN! If you are wanting leftovers, eat all you can.
A romantic date spot this is not. I questioned the good judgement of a young couple sitting at the table next to us. Somewhere between our table’s squeals of magical delight, the ketchup bath, the temper tantrum… I am imagining either a discussion about birth control or a choosing of the first baby’s name, depending on current level of commitment. THEN I SAW IT. The dessert that they had chosen had ALL 20 of our eyes on it… it was as large as a baby’s head!
This was by far the best dessert that I never had. NEVER. «The Minturn Tater» named after a large spud, but could have been named «The Minturn Baby Head» … cookies and cream rolled in cocoa powder, smothered in whipped cream, chocolate sauce, and sprinkled with toasted almonds. They ate the whole thing.
Minturn boomed in the late 1800s because of the Railroad and also the mining prospects long, LOOOONG before Vail and Beaver Creek were a glimmer in any developer’s eye. Today, Minturn is a small town of about 1,000 people that is firmly ensconced in tourism.
Six Important Facts:
1. Beaver Creek to Minturn is about 15 minutes and Vail to Minturn is about 10 minutes.
2. Kid friendly, group friendly, family friendly.
3. Full Bar. Bartender is magical. #3 follows #2 for a reason.
4. Arrive between 5:00 — 6:20 if you do not want to wait for a table.
5. Top 5 meats include a 12 oz Kobe Filet ($ 44.95), 16 oz USDA Prime ($ 38.95), a 16 oz USDA NY strip, 22 oz Porterhouse T-​bone ($ 35.95) and a very Large Filet Mignon ($ 38.95) but you can also get slow cooked baby back ribs that THEY cook ($ 21.95), Lemon Chicken Breast ($ 11.95)…
6. Best sides include Side Sweet Potato Fries ($ 3.50), Onion Rings ($ 3.75), and Twice Baked Potato ($ 3.75).
MY COMPLIMENTS TO THE CHEF.