Organic
Before Its Time
Stuart and Isabel Mace’s natural and organic restaurant left a lasting legacy in Aspen
By Tom Egan

Long before “organic” became a buzzword and supermarkets devoted entire sections to natural food items, the Aspen area was home to a restaurant dedicated to the idea that healthy living begins with eating healthy foods. 

In 1962 Isabel and Stuart Mace decided to open a restaurant in downtown Aspen on the corner of Main Street, where the Hickory House now stands. The Toklat restaurant was a natural outgrowth of the Mace’s legendary lodge and dog-sledding operation, also named Toklat, which was located 11 miles south of Aspen in the Castle Creek Valley, near Ashcroft.

While Stuart mostly ran the dog-sledding operation and the physical plant of Toklat at Castle Creek, Isabel saw to feeding and caring for her five children, any guests that might be staying with them, the business staff and, occasionally, even a Hollywood film crew (the popular 1950s TV show “Sergeant Preston of the Yukon” shot its outdoor scenes here with Stuart’s sled dogs). But rather than succumb to the growing trend of fast food, Isabel used freshly ground grains, locally gathered berries and whatever other natural, fresh organic food was available in her creative dishes. 

At the Aspen restaurant, together the Maces brought these healthy, organic foods to a larger audience. “My father was the creative cooking genius,” says Lynne Mace, their daughter. “My mother was the light behind the organics.” In the summer of 1964 the Maces relocated the Aspen Toklat restaurant to the southwest corner of Durant Street and Monarch Avenue, in the building that would later hold the Chart House restaurant. Though they were successful, the Maces eventually found the 20-hour workdays a drain on their intended simple lifestyle and, in 1970, closed the Aspen location to concentrate on the Ashcroft operation.

The Maces were also instrumental in knitting together a natural-foods cooperative that loosely connected family, friends and suppliers, and they had a mail-order business that offered homemade jams, sourdough starter, blends of tea and more to a loyal following throughout the country. Their influence even reached into the 1970s and ’80s: In 1974, June Kirkwood, who once worked for the Maces, opened Aspen’s first macrobiotic and vegan restaurant, The Little Kitchen, which operated for seven years. 

Isabel’s appreciation for the benefits of eating organically might have been ahead of her time, but as often happens with pioneers, the world has caught up. Here in Aspen, we are fortunate that Isabel and Stuart Mace brought us the message of organic so many years ago.