Did You Know this Colorado Café Made a Cameo in a Thriller Movie?

According to the IMDB database, Colorado has served as the filming location for more than five thousand titles. That massive list includes feature films, shorts, documentaries, scenes for video games, plus a slew of different television series and individual episodes. In some instances, it's easy to recognize famous Colorado landmarks used within a scene, while other times it can be a bit more inconspicuous.

For example, many are unaware that a casual café situated in Colorado's scenic Coal Creek Canyon once made a cameo in a '90s motion picture which starred some major movie stars.

Sitting at 8,888 feet above sea level, Wondervu Café has been an iconic stop at the top of the canyon for decades. Adeline and Leonard Ortiz founded the cozy Mexican restaurant in 1976 and continued running it for the next 46 years.

In 1995, a production crew working on a movie in nearby Pinecliffe, Colorado stumbled upon the Wondervu Café and stopped in to enjoy a meal. While eating, the director asked the Ortiz's if they could use the small-town restaurant to film an upcoming project. The couple agreed, and were soon involved in much of the coordination for the several months. This included many calls with producers and even getting to host some of the cast members for an occasional meal.

The movie being filmed inside the café was Switchback, starring Dennis Quaid, Danny Glover, and Jared Leto. The thrilling plot is centered around an FBI agent trying to catch a serial killer who kidnapped his son. The search takes him to mountain restaurants for leads, which is why Wondervu made such a perfect backdrop. The suspenseful 1997 flick was originally titled Going West in America, but the name was changed during production.

In true Hollywood fashion, when it came time to film, production crews rolled into town with thirty truckloads full of man-made ice and snow - 42,000 pounds to be exact! They also brought along a giant wind machine that was placed up on the hill. Locals thought both of these things to be extremely ironic, given the fact that the canyon was infamous for its 100 mile-per-hour gusts and frequent snowfalls. In the movie, the blizzard was created using a combination of shaved ice, mashed potatoes, and soap flakes.

According to a 1996 newspaper article published in The Mountain-Ear, eleven Wondervu employees were hired to play extras in the movie, including a waitress named Greta Weist, who got to play herself. They earned $60 a day for being witness to Danny Glover performing a tracheotomy on the diner counter. During filming, other locals gathered outside the café in attempts to get the chance to work as extras or just mingle with the cast and kids had fun playing in the fake snow.

Besides the Boulder County café, there's another Colorado connection within the movie. The Denver & Rio Grande Railroad Snowplow AX-044, which is featured near the end of the film, is listed on the Colorado State Register of Historic Properties. It's now on permanent display at the Pioneer Village Museum in Hot Sulphur Springs. IMDB lists several other places in Colorado, including a motel on Colfax Avenue in Denver and Mount Massive as filming locations for Switchback.

Adeline Ortiz sold her beloved restaurant in 2021. Although the establishment is now under new ownership, it continues to serve up the same authentic and delicious cuisine in a cozy, laid-back atmosphere.

Visit the historic eatery at 33492 Highway 72 in Golden.