Finding someone from Cheyenne who has saddled up and ridden the two-lane US-85 highway a mere 45 minutes south and passed through the relatively small village (or more properly, “statutory town”) of Ault, Colorado isn’t hard. Finding someone from that group who has actually stopped there for anything other than a quivering-in-the-wind stoplight or two might be a touch more difficult. And finding someone who knew the town by any of its early names (High Land or Bergdorf Siding, anyone?) would be downright impossible as it has been known simply as “Ault” since 1897.

Ault gained its most recent and most enduring name around 1893 thanks to a one Alexander M. (wait for it…) Ault, a grain buyer and distributor who set up shop in, erm, Ault to capitalize on the growing local economy that revolved around the hamlet’s crossroads-like status among local sugar beet and potato farmers, not to mention cattle ranchers and the biggest reason for its existence in the first place, a Union Pacific rail line that bridged the gap between Denver and Cheyenne (neither of which seemed particularly Union-y or Pacific-y at that time).

In modern times one could argue convincingly the slightly less than 2,000-people-strong community of Ault basically serves the same purpose today, but in this humble reporter’s opinion it boasts almost all of my favorite qualities of a small American plains community: a bank or government agency in a particularly old building, as many saloons as churches (give or take), colossal grain silos that look like huge housing projects from several miles away, various feed stores and heavy truck repair facilities, a couple storage unit concerns and most importantly, a fucking god damn decent cafe. Come to think of it, throw in a Dollar General and they’d about have it all.

Gray’s Cafe occupies the corner-side suite of what seems to be called the “Brown-Avery” building, if the apparently pre-1900 exterior facade is to be trusted. Tucked beneath second-floor window-AC-filled apartment windows (summer time only, plastic wrap in the winter is most likely, me thinks) Gray’s combines all of the required Rolling Stones-like breakfast/lunch menu hits with the ever-present western nod to Hispanic culture and influences by way of a La Bamba-worthy, hype-deserving green chili and the obligatory Americanized breakfast burritos. Compressing all of this down deep into your intestinal tract with the force of the trash compactor in Star Wars Episode IV are their truly colossal house-made cinnamon rolls, the name “roll” greatly underselling what should be called a “doughy industrial baked cinnamon cable spool”. I hear they’re soon to be available special-order from Home Depot, where doers get more done. Or less if they eat one of these.

And yes, I have one in my AirBnB fridge right now, in the bottom drawer so it doesn’t collapse the shelving units like so many floors of a derelict Kenmore skyscraper stacking up seconds after the carefully-placed explosive confectionary charges blew.

Ault: A Unique Little Town, indeed.