McKenna S.
Yelp
Ahh. Okay. I was naive initially when looking at places to eat in the Zion area. I had seen two different businesses under the same name of Buffalo Trails Trading company, and additionally a company by the name of The Cactus Room, that all looked like the same place online and had the same menus displayed on the reviews. I gave it a shot regardless, but upon entering, my friends and I immediately realized how unsanitary this place was, from the plywood ceilings to the dust covered jewelry cases, my stomach immediately started churning. Ignoring my intuition, we ventured to peek at the whiteboard menu with the marked up the prices for food and saw how odd a "Hawaiian pasta salad with garlic bread" and a "rosemary/raspberry chipotle chicken breast with spaghetti western potatoes" were to have on the menu.
When we recognized this, we quickly told the owner we were in there for "pie to-go" just to be nice, given his enthusiasm. We had asked him what kind of pies he had on the menu since they weren't listed on the whiteboard, and he gave a speech to the ENTIRE restaurant about the pies he had, so he didn't have to repeat this announcement to every guest who was curious about dessert options. After this 3 minute long announcement, we should have taken that as a cue to leave, but instead, ordered the pies, and waited a whole 20 minutes for something that we had figured was pre-prepared. While waiting, we recognized the owner was a one-man show, basically acting as a waiter, checking people out, and cooking the food. We waited patiently and thankfully, took the pies and ate dinner elsewhere. After dinner, we ended up eating the pies we purchased, considering each slice was $10 each. We thought these were going to be at least worth the $10 each ($30 for 3 slices of pie), but instead, we got what amounted to be 3 slices of stomach-cramping, like Reddi Wip mixed with canned puree on a Pillsbury pie crust. Needless to say, after a few bites, the remains were discarded. I've had better pies in the frozen section of a grocery store. I write this as a warning to anyone who is looking for a proper pie, or even a sanitary burger after a long day of hiking.