How Red River Gorge climbing hub Miguel’s Pizza first started as an ice cream shop

For some, Miguel’s Pizza is a stop for a slice of pie after hiking at Red River Gorge. For others, it becomes their new community full of climbing enthusiasts.

The Slade pizza place is one-of-a-kind. Its feel is slightly dampened due to the limitations of COVID-19, with social distancing and face masks blocking smiles. (It closed for a month-and-a half.) But most is still the same. Kids chasing each other as they wait for pizza. Climbers charting a path to Chocolate Mountain or Beer Belly. Campers setting up tents. Road trippers pulling off to fill up on pizza. Business meetings conducted over an Ale-8-One and a shared pie.

But after 36 years, Miguel’s Pizza seems to have found it’s footing, its owners accepting its success, even though it started as an ice cream shop.

“It seems like no matter how busy it gets, it still tends to attract the same kind of people even when it’s attracting a lot more of them,” said Miguel’s manager Roger Bess, who began working there at age 17, which was about 20 years ago.

How Miguel’s Pizza started

Sons Dario and Mark Ventura manage the day-to-day operations, wanting their parents Miguel and Susan to slow down and enjoy retirement.

Dario said he can’t think of a better example of the American dream, describing the journey his parents made to create the pizza destination.

Miguel grew up in an off-the-beaten-path village in Portugal. His grandfather lived in a rock hut and was the baker for the village. A craft passed down to his daughter and on. It’s how bread got into the Ventura family.

Through moves and word-of-mouth, Miguel and Susan found themselves owning 50 acres in Slade, Kentucky with several others in 1983. It was the location of a former country store, The Old Jottem Down Store. They opened an ice cream shop serving scoops of 32 flavors of Häagen-Dazs. Some people who come to Miguel’s Pizza today remember the name of the ice cream shop, The Rainbow Door.

Climbers began showing up to Slade and creating a climbing community in the ghost town.

The Venturas allowed the climbers to camp on the property, which Dario described as a glorified hippy commune.

The climbing campers would sometimes buy ice cream. But they couldn’t sustain on ice cream for dinner. Susan, who became a dietitian, struggled with the idea of serving tubs and tubs of ice cream in Eastern Kentucky, a region that was grappling with high amounts of obesity.

So in a 12-foot by 12-foot kitchen, Miguel began making pizza using an oven that could only hold three pizzas. At first, it wasn’t busy, but year after year, more people would come so the ice cream went away. The wait became two-and-half hours, and Miguel’s was selling 25 pizzas on a Saturday night.

In 2007, Miguel’s found its footing, growing and expanding every year, including building a new kitchen in 2018, Dario said.

Miguel’s helped highlight Slade

The success hasn’t set in for Dario and Mark’s parents.

“We’ve been always playing catch up,” Dario said. “Our parents aren’t the types to assume they’re going to be successful or busy. They’re too humble for their own good.”

Miguel’s has almost a cult following, Dario described. Stickers and shirts with Miguel’s name are found miles and miles away from the pizza place. Dario said his dad will question how they know about our place. It happened organically, Mark said, through word of mouth or passing by Slade and seeing a pizza restaurant with a high rating.

The Venturas have concentrated on making a good product.

“Dad has always said being in one place with your doors open for a very long time,” Dario said. “It’s that persistence of offering something that overtime is what’s successful and always striving to provide a good product. That’s hard to do for 30 years.”

The atmosphere is also what makes Miguel’s special, Dario said.

“We’ve always been open arms to everyone, this kind of all inclusive,” he said. “Here’s our food. We’re not trying to paint any picture. You just come here and do your thing. I think people appreciate that, because they can come here and they don’t feel judged.”

Kristen Wiley, the co-director of the Kentucky Reptile Zoo in Slade, said she looks at Miguel’s as a kindred spirit.

“It made me feel like I came somewhere special,” Wiley said.

Miguel’s ‘feels like a second home’

Chelsea Burns, a climber and Miguel’s employee, worked for two years at the pizza restaurant in 2015 and 2016. She returned this year. This year is different from the COVID-19 outbreak when years in the past they would hang at the fire pit until late. But the community of instant friends and climbing partners is still the same.

“It was easy to come back and work here again, even after taking a couple years off,” she said. “It feels like a second home for sure.”

Growing up in Lexington, Issac King always knew what Miguel’s was. He decided to get a summer job at the restaurant and spend the whole season climbing before heading into his last year at University of Kentucky. He is contemplating returning after he graduates next year. He didn’t know what to expect at Miguel’s, but he has found a sense of community, learning about other people and their skills like juggling or acro-yoga. King admits that he didn’t know that Miguel is an actual person until this summer.

Bess said the community is what makes Miguel’s what it is and he is a part of a place that “transcends what most people think is the way the world is supposed to work or has to work.” The Venturas are “some of the best people you’ll ever meet” who work hard to provide a unique opportunity. He calls the restaurant: Miguel’s lifetime art project.

“I don’t know many people could have made this business work here like they did,” Mark said. “They devoted their lives every single day to it.”

The sons are ready to let their parents relax. Susan can be found working the register at the gear shop and Miguel around the property, but they admit it’s hard for them.

“It’s really become their identity,” Dario said. “They don’t really see out of it. Especially our mom, it’s truly who she is.”

Miguel’s Pizza

Where: 1890 Natural Bridge Road, Slade, Ky.

Hours: 7 a.m.-9:45 p.m., Mon.-Sun.

More: 606-663-1975; miguelspizza.com