Yak's History

The building itself has been in the exact location since the early 40's and was once a dairy. Then a chinchilla farm until mid-1970’s. Turned into a pool hall and then into a restaurant by a local (Kenny Morriston) this is when it first became Kenny's restaurant, Mr. Morriston had it until 1980 and then another local (Art Yoakam) took it over and ran the restaurant from around 1982 to 1999 and made it pretty successful. Another local (Michelle Shumway) took over operation in 2000-2005 and served Mexican food until her cancer caught up with her. The building then sat longing for a new owner to take it over.

 

 

In 2005, Tamy Oliver Jaramillo, purchased the café from Michelle, and started to remodel it and opened the café back up. Tamy, decided after working in the hospitality industry for everyone else that it was time to work for herself. Specializing in breakfast and some classic old-time favorites. Tamy has turned Yaks, into an extraordinarily successful small business that is family operated. If you ever in Yaks say, Hi to Tamy, you can usually find her in the heart of the café cooking your food. She still operates it herself and is still the current operating owner to this day. The waitress is Tamy’s daughter, and the bus boys are her grandchildren when they are not in school. The hostess is Savannah Barr, she is Tamy's daughter-in-law, and helps out when she can. Tamy also hires additional help for the busier months, and each and every one of them become family to her. She takes them under her wings and teaches them some tricks of the trade for a successful business.

 

 

One of our top asked questions is how we came up with the name Yaks, it is not because we serve yak on our menu. The owner Tamy Jaramillo, husband was (Mike Jaramillo, passed away 11 years ago) a truck driver and his CB handle was Yakety Yak (yes like the classic song, by the Coasters), because he talked all the time and knew no strangers. Once in the cafe you can learn about some more family history, we have some picture on the wall from when Lake Powell was first filing up and the cattle was getting stranded on little islands. It is a must-read story. Come on in, we look forward to meeting you all!