October 2026 Newsletter

The People of the Park:

From the Kitchens in Vegas to the one at Silveridge

A Journey with Brenda Osborne

By Dale Dauten

When we asked Brenda Osborne to recall a favorite compliment about the food at the park, the memory of that one above made her smile. And the food at Silveridge has been making residents smile for years, especially since the expanded kitchen management team of Brenda, Jerry Colling and Tracy Gagnier got the green light last season to elevate the menu.

(L to R, Jerry, Brenda and Tracy)

But it’s not just the managers who get the credit, as Brenda was quick to point out: “We have about 100 volunteers in the kitchen—not all at one time, obviously—and they are amazing. We couldn’t put together any of these events without them. Last year we came in and threw all kinds of different menus at them, and they took it and ran with it. They enjoyed learning new things and doing new things and became a great team.” She added, “They make the job fun because they want to be there.”

(Photos: A few of the volunteers in action, and the volunteers sitting down to a meal after serving everyone else)

We wondered if she had a secret to staying calm amid all that juggling: “I don’t know if there’s a secret,” she answered. “It’s just organized chaos. As long as everybody’s working together as a team, it can be stressful for a minute, but we work together and the stress or chaos never get overwhelming or out of control. When I worked in Las Vegas, I would describe that as not organized chaos—just chaos, stress, and tension. But this kitchen is different. Everybody works together, and they’re all happy to be there. Even when there are the problems, it still runs smoothly.”

We’ll get back to Vegas, but first, we wondered, what sort of problems she was referring to. Brenda shrugged as she recounted a few examples: “We had one night when half the outlets went out. We couldn’t use half the kitchen, so we had to adapt really quickly. And the grill—there was the day when every time we would use the grill, it would set the smoke alarms off. The smoke alarm reset is on the ceiling, so we’d have people jumping up on a ladder trying to turn it off. And I’ve also had my orders not come in complete, missing a key element. For example, with the chicken pot pie, the key element wasn’t there – the puff pastry topping. We had to shuffle quickly and find another way to get it done. There’s always something — it just depends on how quickly you can fix it, without stress.” Then she smiled the smile of someone who enjoys a good problem.

Brenda grew up in Colorado, mostly in what’s known as the Western Slope, around the city of Grand Junction. Brenda summarized her family this way: “My dad was in construction and then was a truck driver. My mom was a photographer and then worked at a bank. I have a brother — he’s about four years younger — who drove me nuts when I was younger, but now we’re best friends.”

After graduating from Palisade High, outside Grand Junction, Brenda moved to Denver and did some bartending. Then she returned to Grand Junction for culinary training, and that led her to Las Vegas and to UNLV to study hospitality management. We asked Brenda if that training then led to her time working in kitchens in Las Vegas. She surprised us with this answer: “Yes. And then I came back to Colorado and went into concrete because I never wanted to work in a kitchen again.”

Wait.. What? … What happened in Vegas?

“It was horrible. Some of the food they asked me to serve was questionable, and the way they talked to people and treated people—I just felt like my morals were compromised all the time I was working there. It wasn’t worth it. I went into concrete and industrial supply and stayed there until I came here, to Silveridge. That first year, I helped out in the kitchen and had fun. So when I was asked to join the management team, I accepted. And I was happy about it because it’s a fun environment to work in.”

But we need to back up one more time and hear about working with concrete after working hospitality in Vegas… how did that come about?

“A friend of the family owned a concrete company. We only worked on airports, and that’s how I got the job — I could pass a federal background check. I helped manage the crew and organize everything. I handled supplies—from batteries all the way up to concrete components. You have to move a lot of dirt and prepare a lot of dirt, then you can put all your forms in and lay the concrete. It’s a lot of concrete on an airport — you need to go at least four feet deep, in layers. And I would do whatever I needed to do, to step in. I’d run equipment or flag, and I even stepped in and helped finish the concrete a couple of times. Some days I’d be in a dump truck. Some days I’d be in a roller, smoothing the ground out. Some days it would be a backhoe or a Bobcat.”

We supposed that being a woman working in concrete made her a rarity, and that led us to wonder, hopefully, if she found a positive side to being a woman in that mostly male world.

“I suppose it gives the men a different perspective, something different that they wouldn’t normally think about. A lot of them would look at you as the female and say, “Oh, you don’t know anything because you’re a female. Then you give them the answer, save the day, or fix whatever the problem is, and they’re like, ‘Oh, wow. I’m always coming back to you for help.’”

*

And speaking of coming back, from Colorado to Vegas and back again, from the kitchen to concrete and back again, Brenda has found her surprising path to Silveridge. And, as the new season starts up, we’ll get to see what surprises Brenda, Jerry, Tracy and a hundred volunteers come up with.