Pizza maker, artist, family man, social servant; Red River Gorge, Kentucky

Climbers will find a welcome bit of reverse discrimination at Miguel’s Pizza, in the heart of the Red River Gorge, in Slade, Kentucky. A pizza box tacked to a tree out front reads “Climbers Only.” The man behind the sign is Portuguese émigré Miguel Ventura, 56, the owner of perhaps the most climber-friendly joint in the country. Miguel bought himself a slice of backwoods real estate in 1984, and the next year opened the Rainbow Door, an ice-cream shop catering to the handful of trad climbers at the RRG then. Now, 24 years later he slings pizza and climbing gear instead, and on a busy spring or fall weekend you’ll find upwards of 80 tents in his campground out back. (Miguel’s wife, Susan, and three kids, Dario, Sarah, and Mark, help run the bustling business.) Miguel makes large woodcarvings, too, and if you’ve eaten his pizza, you’ve eaten from his garden.

We hooked up wireless Internet service …[But] we’ve heard some people complaining that they liked the old times. People interacted more — now they’re all stuck on their computers. It’s not like the old days. Everybody sat around and chatted, and it’d be more personal. Now, anything that goes on here at Miguel’s is broadcast on the Internet.

We go through people here every four years, basically — they start as they go through college, and then leave when they graduate. So we’ve gone through four generations already. It’s a cycle, like life.

We all try to make sense of our own lives. I did the same thing [the climbers here] are doing — I traveled for eight years and was an artist. Then I decided I wanted to settle down and make sense of my life. You just have to fit somewhere.

I think now, the biggest thing is the globalization — kids are traveling the globe now and trying to make a niche with that. One guy came in trying to sell me chalk bags made in India.

We’re here as long as we’re supposed to be. That’s always how it’s been.

I leave here, and the climbers take over, so I don’t know what goes on at night. I think the scariest thing that ever happened was when a tree fell on this young lady’s tent. The power line caught it and kept it from crushing her and her little dog… they used a knife to cut her out. 

I start at 5 in the morning and have two guys who help me prep, and I cook up the crusts and get ready for the day.