Prairie Schooner in Ogden Revisited

The Prairie Schooner Steakhouse has been an Ogden landmark since 1976. When I was asked to do a short story on the Prairie Schooner’s unique covered-wagon ambiance for Devour magazine, I enjoyed revisiting the restaurant and its history. I ended up with too much great info to fit into a 350-word story. So here’s “the rest of the story.”

Back in the 1980s and 1990s, Prairie Schooner was a hot dining spot, the place you went for special occasions. It offered a taste of the Old West — covered wagons circled under a starry sky, amid a campfire, sagebrush, cactus and life-size mounts of wild animals. (Somehow I don’t think that PETA will be holding a meeting here anytime soon.)

It was first opened in 1976 by Neil Rasmussen, behind what was then the Pioneer Cafe in downtown Ogden. Located where The Junction is now, the small restaurant had covered wagon seating. The simple menu featured four steak options — filet mignon, T-bone, New York and ground steak.

“A place for a steak lover,” is what Rasmussen called it, according to Michelle Llewellyn, the current manager. She said he realized that Maddox in Brigham City was about the only high-end steakhouse in the area at the time. So the timing was right for steaks. But, the timing for that location was wrong, as construction of the Ogden City Mall forced the restaurant to move.

Rasmussen and his partners, Dean and Karen Hill, relocated to the current site on 445 Park Boulevard near the Ogden River. Rasmussen, an avid hunter, decorated it with mounted wild game, old wagon wheels, ranching tools, and so on. You can almost smell the campfire smoke and hear the coyotes howling. It was a time when themed restaurants, such as the Hard Rock Cafe and the Old Spaghetti Factory, were catching on, and people wanted a little bit of entertainment with their meal. Welcome to the Call of the Wild.

“He wanted it to be a fun place, almost like a show,” said Llewellyn. “There’s something to be said about sitting in a wagon style booth next to a campfire with a delicious steak. You have so much more to look at than just a booth next to you. There are so many details.”

It proved so popular that another dining area was added to the back of the building, to alleviate the two- or three-hour waits for a table on Saturday nights.

Then tragedy struck, when Rasmussen passed away in 1982 from ALS. The Hills left to found the Timbermine, another high-end themed steakhouse that is still in business today. Eventually, the Rasmussen family sold the Prairie Schooner to Rasmussen’s hunting buddy, Jim Koertge, who had helped with the initial décor and taxidermy mounts. Jim ran the restaurant until 2009,  and then it changed hands.

In 2015, it was bought by Norm George and Julie Johnson. In a Standard-Examiner article, Johnson noted that the restaurant had struggled in the past with food quality and service, and vowed to bring it “back to the way it used to be.”

Some new dishes, such as ribs, were added, and the lunch menu was revamped. But signature specialities remain — the deep-fried mushroom appetizers to the Wagonmaster Porterhouse steak, and the Cowgirl — a bacon-wrapped filet mignon.  Llewellyn said  the steaks are hand-cut, in-house.

“The salmon is one of our most popular items, and it’s fresh and hand-cut, which I believe tastes better than frozen,” she said. “It’s broiled with a bit of seasoning and lemon and butter, that’s all it needs.”

She’s also proud of the burgers, which are made from the trimmings from those hand-cut steaks. “So you are getting a chopped steak,” she said. “They’re half-a pound and so delicious.”

The wagon-covered booths, with rough-hewn log benches for seating, creates a cozy feeling of privacy. You don’t feel as if you’re sitting too close to neighboring tables. Country music plays softly in the background, but doesn’t overtake the conversation.

The Prairie Schooner’s celebrity guests include the country band Alabama, comedian Rodney Dangerfield, and country singers Blake Shelton and Reba McIntyre.

The biggest challenge is the lack of overhead lighting for cleaning and maintenance, said Llewellyn. It’s hard to see to do the weekly dusting and wiping. “Once a week we dust off all the animals. It’s weird to wipe down sagebrush, but we do it.”

Yee-haw!