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By Root 1257 0

Lasater says that most Americans have forgotten what real beef tastes like. Argentine beef is considered a gourmet item, served at expensive restaurants, and almost all of the cattle in Argentina are grass-fed. Recent findings that grass-fed cattle may be less likely to spread E. coli 0157:H7 have strengthened Lasater’s determination to follow a different path. Along with a number of other innovative ranchers in Colorado, he is trying to raise cattle in a way that does not harm consumers or the land. Hank was a dear friend of his, in many ways a kindred spirit. Lasater doesn’t think that his little company will revolutionize the American beef industry; but it’s a start.

Sixty miles away, on South Nevada Avenue in Colorado Springs, Rich Conway helps run a family business that’s also bucking the tide. Conway’s Red Top Restaurant occupies a modest brick building on a street full of old western motels, the kind with animated neon Indian chiefs on their signs, the kind where the U in the 4-U Motel is a golden horseshoe. Rich Conway’s been through a lot. He’s had a motorcycle accident and a bad car accident, later slipped on some ice and broke his back. Now in his early fifties, Conway walks slowly with a cane, but has a handsome, weathered face, a Zen-like calm and a tough, independent streak that keeps him going, against the odds. He’s a survivor. When I asked why the Conway family provides health insurance to all the full-time workers at the restaurant, he smiled politely, as though the answer was pretty obvious, and said, “We want to have healthy employees.”

Rich Conway’s parents started working at the Red Top not long after it opened in 1944 and bought the restaurant in 1961. He grew up working there, along with his nine brothers and sisters. Conway’s Red Top — with a little spinning top on its yellow sign — became a local favorite, thanks to its large, oval hamburgers, homemade fries, and friendly atmosphere. The restaurant continued to thrive in the 1970s, despite an invasion by national fast food chains that landed up and down South Nevada. But Conway’s almost closed in the early 1980s, after the death of Rich’s father. The restaurant’s local suppliers helped keep it afloat until new financing could be arranged, a story whose details bring to mind It’s a Wonderful Life. Conway’s Red Top now has four locations in Colorado Springs. Rich Conway was president of the family business until 1999; his younger brother Jim now has that job. Their brother Dan is the finance director, their sister Mary Kaye is the marketing director; another brother, Mike, is the operations manager; another sister, Patty Jo, is an assistant manager — and many of the thirty-seven Conways in the next generation work at various Red Top restaurants. The family has an intense, personal commitment to their work, and it shows. According to food critics Jane and Michael Stern, Conway’s Red Top sells some of the best hamburgers in the United States.

At the Conway’s on South Nevada, hamburger patties are still formed every day by hand, using fresh, not frozen, ground beef. The meat is obtained from GNC Packing, a small, independent processor in Colorado Springs. The buns come from a bakery in Pueblo. Two hundred pounds of potatoes are peeled every morning in the kitchen and then sliced with an old crank-operated contraption. The burgers and fries are made to order by cooks who earn $10 an hour. They wear baseball caps that say “Conway’s Red Top: One’s a Meal.” The workers are not told what to do by fancy computer software, there’s take-out but no drive-through, and the food is only slightly more expensive than what’s served in the half-empty Wendy’s across the street. One day I met a customer at Conway’s who has regularly been having lunch there for fifty years.

The Conway family is now debating how to expand the business without compromising the values responsible for its success. Opening new restaurants could provide financial opportunities for the dozens of Conway offspring, but could also involve a good deal of risk. The timing may be right, however,