Ullrhof’s 2026 Snowmass Reopening: Enough Seats on Big Burn?

How many more lunch seats does Big Burn need? Roughly 400, by Aspen Skiing Co.'s own count to the Town of Snowmass Village. That figure explains why Ullrhof was fully demolished in 2025 and why the version reopening this November is built the way it is. It also explains why the new building, at roughly double the old one's capacity, shrinks the lunch problem without ending it.

Snowmass opens Thursday, Nov. 26, 2026, and runs through April 11, 2027, conditions permitting. Aspen Snowmass lists Ullrhof as "Reopening November 2026" and hasn't announced a specific day. When it opens, it will be in the same place as before, at the base of the Big Burn lift, with lunch served from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

The shortage SkiCo put in writing

SkiCo didn't pitch this rebuild as a nicer lodge. It pitched it as a fix for a measured shortfall, and it was blunt about where the shortfall hit hardest. The company's special review application, quoted by the Aspen Daily News in December 2024, put it this way:

"The proposed new, larger facility will provide a measurable increase in seating for guests skiing the Big Burn pod -- an area that can see over 3,000 skiers on the mountain during the lunch period due to the popular intermediate terrain served by the Big Burn and Sheer Bliss lifts."

According to The Aspen Times, SkiCo estimated that at current skier volume, Snowmass was short 460 to 650 restaurant seats mountainwide and 380 to 460 in Big Burn alone. When Town Council approved the plan, SkiCo Senior Planning Manager Dana Dalla Betta rounded it off, as the Aspen Daily News reported: "We're short roughly 400 seats within the Big Burn skiing pod alone."

The old Ullrhof had been on that slope since 1969, and SkiCo's application called it outdated and at the end of its useful life. SkiCo sized the replacement against the seat shortage.

How the seat count moved from proposal to opening

Coverage of the project has used several capacity figures. They make the most sense side by side.

Take the more generous baseline of about 325 and the new public figure of 600-plus, and the net gain comes to roughly 275 seats or a bit more. That covers a large share of the approximately 400-seat Big Burn gap Dalla Betta described, but not all of it. The approved plan's 725 would have closed the gap entirely. The Snowmass Tourism release doesn't explain why its number is lower or how the 600-plus splits between indoor and outdoor seats. The gap could be a conservative public figure or a real reduction from what was approved.

The split matters because of the weather. SkiCo's 2023 master development plan, as summarized by the Aspen Daily News, said Snowmass restaurants can handle lunch crowds when all outdoor seats are usable, but that weather often makes that impractical. In the approved design, 275 of the 725 seats were outdoors. On a snowy day at 15 degrees, the approved indoor count was 450. That's well above the old building's total, and well below the headline number.

A burger bar built to clear tables

Ullrhof's design is meant to turn seats over quickly, which is the other half of the capacity math. Dalla Betta described it to The Aspen Times as "a workhorse dining experience," adding, "It's our goal to feed as many people as efficiently as possible."

Here is how ordering was described at approval, per the Aspen Daily News:

1. Ski in from the Lunch Line catwalk, which now leads to a third floor that SkiCo added partly to make ski-in, ski-out access easier.
2. Find a seat first, then order by kiosk or mobile phone.
3. Pick up the food when a notification comes through. At least one cashier was planned for anyone who'd rather skip the digital system.

The plan put a high-volume burger bar on the main floor, a bar and lounge on the upper floor, and brats, hot dogs and draft beer on the outdoor deck. Aspen Snowmass is promoting the reopening as "your new and improved favorite burger joint," with burgers, fries and shakes all day. The approved building is three stories and 19,514 square feet, plus partially covered outdoor dining.

Order-from-your-seat is the part regulars will feel. In the old cafeteria, you could have a full tray in your hands before you knew whether a table was free. The new flow reverses that order. Seats still fill, but the scramble moves from the tray line to the dining room.

It's also Aspen Snowmass's first fully electric restaurant. Aspen Skiing Co. CEO Geoff Buchheister told Aspen Public Radio that this means no propane and no natural gas, with SkiCo working with Holy Cross Energy on the switch. The Aspen Times put the rebuild at $42 million in June 2026.

Big Burn absorbs pressure from the rest of the mountain

Ullrhof wasn't sized only for skiers already eating there. At approval, Dalla Betta said the expansion was also meant to relieve pressure on the Elk Camp and Alpine Springs pods, and to build in room for SkiCo's year-over-year skier growth over the life of the master plan. That puts the rebuilt Ullrhof in the middle of a mountainwide dining puzzle that is only partly solved.

Pieces already in place since the closure:

• The Cabin, formerly the Lynn Britt Cabin and in the same pod as Ullrhof, added about 80 seats in a renovation completed by late 2024.
• Elk Camp added a 120-seat east-side deck for the 2025-26 season.
• Spider Sabich Race and Picnic Area brought back The Hot Dogger pop-up last winter, featuring Los Angeles-based Sumo Dog.

Pieces still on paper: the 2023 master plan named a new two-level, 400-seat restaurant at the base of the Alpine Springs chairlift, on the uphill side of where the Naked Lady and Slider trails meet, chosen for "ease of access from almost every lift on the mountain." It also named a smaller Gunner's View restaurant with about 100 indoor and 100 outdoor seats, plus roughly 50 more indoor seats and added deck space at Sam's. The same coverage described the master plan as a wish list in which some projects never get past the dream stage. No construction dates for those three have been announced.

Until Alpine Springs exists, Ullrhof is the overflow valve for a wider area than Big Burn alone. That's the clearest reason to expect Big Burn lunch to stay tight on peak days even with the new building open.

The winter's other variable is who's skiing

On the demand side, Aspen Snowmass has joined the Ikon Base Pass for 2026-27. It gives five days at Snowmass, with select blackout dates, and doesn't cover Aspen Mountain, Aspen Highlands or Buttermilk. No projection of how many Base Pass skiers will come has been released. But every one of them who visits can only spend those days at Snowmass, and Snowmass Tourism describes the mountain as known for its "family-friendly skiing." The intermediate terrain off Big Burn and Sheer Bliss is exactly what SkiCo cited for the 3,000-plus lunchtime crowd.

The blackout dates limit when Base Pass skiers can come. Outside them, on a busy weekend, the Big Burn pod may see more people at noon than the old Ullrhof ever served, in a building sized against a shortage measured before the Base Pass existed.

Timing your lunch around the opening

Since there's no confirmed opening day, the first few days of the season are uncertain. Snowmass Tourism's seasonal calendar shows village spots like Aurum Food & Wine in Base Village returning Nov. 26, the same day the lifts start turning. Whether Ullrhof opens that day or later in the month, regular Big Burn skiers will learn quickly how far the seat count holds up on a crowded Saturday.

The rebuild has been in the works since the 2023 master plan, and early-season traffic will be the first real test of SkiCo's numbers. Sam Augustine follows how Snowmass mountain investments like Ullrhof change the way the village works day to day, and what that means for owners near the Fanny Hill base. Discover the professional difference. Contact Sam.