Wong opened Shift five years ago with her then-husband and business partner Joe Rodger. He operated as chef, Wong as pastry chef. The former couple met at Frasca Food and Wine in Boulder, Colorado, moved to Vail to work at Sweet Basil, and then arrived on the mountain slopes of Flagstaff to help chef Scott Heinonen with local restaurants Tinderbox Kitchen and Tourist Home.
“We loved the town,” Wong recalls. “It reminded me of Boulder.”
It wasn’t long after that when Wong and Rodger jumped at the chance to open their own place. Shift launched in April 2016 as an energetic bistro with 50 seats, a chef’s counter and an open kitchen. They changed the hyper-seasonal menu every few weeks, plucking fresh produce for every dish from farmers markets.
At the time, the Flagstaff restaurant scene leaned more steak and potatoes than morel mushrooms and banana hummus, but as Wong remembers, the town was immediately into what Shift was plating.
“Shift felt new in terms of style of food and use of ingredients, but everyone was very accepting of us,” Wong says. “Now there are so many restaurants coming in with a similar vision. It’s exciting to see.”
Before Shift, Wong, a business management graduate of University of Denver, had spent most of her career in Colorado. Initially drawn to hospitality, she worked in hotels during college, but soon gravitated to kitchens, where she felt her creativity could flourish. She attended Cook Street School of Culinary Arts in Denver, a four-month intensive program that awoke her passion for baking.
“Pastry was calling to me,” she says. “I’m a follower of systems and technique is really important in pastry. You can’t just throw salt in whenever you want. I liked that.”
In 2018, Wong and Rodger parted ways and she became sole owner of Shift. This, er, “shift” in restaurant ownership and kitchen leadership may have thrown someone else for a loop, but not Wong. “That’s Shift,” she says. “Literally. It’s our name and it’s what we do. We’re evolving, but we still have the same mentality from the day we opened: To be fine-dining focused, but loud and fun, with stunningly beautiful, extremely flavorful food.”
She adds: “My divorce, changing chefs, COVID—hurdles that other people might think of as negative, or things that could break a business have, honestly, made me and the restaurant stronger.”
There’s one more phrase that describes Dara Wong, and maybe it’s the one that gets to the heart of who she really is.
“Mama bear,” Wong says laughing. “My staff calls me that. They’re who I do this for. We go to battle together. ‘Put your apron on and let’s do this.’ Of everything, I’m most proud of them.”