Our story

Chef Nathan Kardos

Chef / Owner

A young male chef in a kitchen, wearing a cap and black chef jacket, standing behind a counter with stacked plates and bowls, stainless steel walls in the background.

Cody native Nathan Kardos graduated from Cody High School and moved to Colorado to attend the Culinary School of the Rockies (now the Boulder Campus of the Auguste Escoffier School of Culinary Arts) where he received his diploma in 2008.

A man with a beard, wearing a baseball cap and a chef's jacket, is focused on something in front of him. The jacket has a logo that says 'Trailhead' and his name, Nathan Kardos, is embroidered along with his title, Chef Owner.

Nathan went to work at various restaurants in Denver including Panzano, the city's top Italian restaurant, where he trained under Elise Wiggens as a sous chef. Moving back to Cody in 2013, Nathan worked as a personal chef for a prominent local family.

A man wearing a baseball cap and a chef's jacket with the logo 'Trailhead' and the name 'Nathan Kandes' stands in a kitchen or food preparation area.

During the winter of 2017 – 2018, Nathan was hired as a consultant to reconstruct the menu and revamp the overall concept of Carolina Coffee Shop in Chapel Hill, North Carolina's oldest continuously running restaurant.

A chef in a black uniform and cap slices herbs on a white cutting board in a professional kitchen.

Nathan has opened Trailhead Bar Grill Wood Fired Pizza in Cody, Wyoming after two years of planning. He has succeeded in achieving his goals of opening a restaurant that caters to the local market with an upscale / casual feel and is family-friendly. Keeping it western but contemporary, Trailhead serves high quality and recognizable cuisine that supports local farmers and ranchers with sustainable practices who supply high quality, accessible ingredients.