John Colter Ranch House

I was so surprised to find such great food in a National Park. Don’t be fooled by the rustic surroundings. The smoked meats are fantastic. Last night I had one of the best prime rib dinners ever. Today I had the coffee rubbed brisket which was great. They had a perfectly seasoned artichoke ranch soup with a touch of sherry. The best however are the top shelf huckleberry margaritas!

Not many places to eat here in the park and we happened to be at Colter Bay Area and stopped at the Ranch House for lunch. It was OK but might have been better at the Café next door (who knows). Service here is excellent. I had the Buffalo Burger and was charred and was OK, the macaroni and coleslaw sides were terrible (my brother and daughter had these) so stick with fries. My Wife had the taco salad and she thought it was pretty good!

Service was excellent, but the food was pretty poor. We actually found the food in the Café Court to be a bit better. My trout was ok, but my sides — coleslaw and beans — we’re pretty bad. I thought they tasted about as good as something you’d buy at the deli counter of a grocery store. And the dinner entrees were not cheap, so we were pretty disappointed.

My fiancé had a couple of meals at the John Colter Ranch House while staying in Colter Bay in Grand Teton National Park. The meals were generally very good as was service.
The first morning we were there I had their breakfast buffet and the fiancé had their two egg breakfast deal. The buffet was ok, lots of stuff but in typical buffet fashion, nothing really amazing. The fiancé’s eggs were good as well. We had dinner the following day as well. The fiancé had the eggs again and this time I had the breakfast burrito. The breakfast burrito was ok, much larger than I expected or really needed.
We had dinner there one night as well. The dinner was really the standout meal. The fiancé had the cedar plank salmon and I had the buffalo flank steak. She really enjoyed her salmon and in particular the wax beans that were served with it. My flank steak tasted great and was prepared medium rare just as I asked. My only complaint about it was that I felt it had been sliced a bit thicker than I generally prefer flank steak. I find that slicing flank steak very thin makes it a bit less tough, so this steak was perhaps a bit tougher than it needed to be. Otherwise it was a great meal.
After our dinner, we moved over to the bar so we could utilize their wifi. While we were sitting at the bar we had a very nice chat with the bar tender. My fiancé mentioned that we had just gotten engaged the day before. The bar tender went in back and returned shortly with a complimentary slice of cheesecake for us in celebration of our engagement. That experience was very much in line with the rest of the service we had while dining at the Ranch House.