Looking back, it might sound crazy for a new restaurant to look at opening its doors during the COVID year of 2020. But, that’s just what co-founder and Executive Chef Brandon Kirksey and business partner David Steele did when they opened Great Gold in Truckee.

The duo formed Great Gold Hospitality Group and was already looking at a second Great Gold location prior to the pandemic. The first location opened in San Francisco in 2017 but was closed once the two decided to focus solely on the Truckee location.

“Truckee was a little more laid back restriction-wise,” said Kirksey. “It made things easier so we decided to focus up here and once we opened it was busier than in the city.”

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Starting out with a focus on pizza and hand crafted pasta, and only providing takeout, Great Gold slowly became known for their pizza. While it took a while to get the right people in place, the restaurant progressively opened up to the point where they are currently fully open seven days a week. It’s the success they found with Great Gold that lead them to opening up Tangerine Bistro.

“The goal to start up Great Gold has always been bigger than having one restaurant,” added Kirksey. “The goal was to build a restaurant company and has always been on our radar to expand.”

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Adding another restaurant, Kirksey likens the experience to having a child – you’re almost never ready. But, when the space opened up on Donner Pass Road, the vision of what could be pushed them towards the concept of a classic French bistro. And while Kirksey’s forte is Italian, they didn’t want to open up another Italian restaurant. Knowing there wasn’t really anything like it in the region they knew it would ultimately be a good offering for the community.

“I wanted to do a cuisine that was crave-worthy where people can come on a regular basis and not just a special occasion,” said Kirksey. “French is approachable, comforting and good for the mountains – especially in the winter.”

Tangerine officially opened its doors on October 31 with the goal of transporting diners to a realm of gastronomic delight while drawing inspiration from restaurants found in Paris and New York. Offerings will include items like duck foie paté with blackberry jam, French onion soup with sherry and gruyere, and cassoulet with duck confit.

One menu item that has been a surprise hit is their rainbow trout, which is butchered fresh every morning and cooked in a cast iron pan with butter and herbs, then plated with butter greens and French salsa verde.

Regardless of what the dish is, Kirksey is taking the same approach to food as they do at Great Gold.

“The most important thing is ingredients and being responsible with sourcing. We pay attention to the products and focus on quality – we don’t cut corners. We try to prepare with care and skill and I think that shows.”

Part of the dining experience and atmosphere revolves around the intentionality of the music. The Tangerine name stems from their love of the classic Led Zeppelin song and is part of their huge (and obscure) artist collections.

“We could very easily just throw on Spotify and not think about it, but we wanted to have a lively atmosphere with high energy and fun,” added Kirksey. “We do full albums. Every playlist we sat down and hand picked each album in full. We try not to make it too mainstream, just whatever we’re excited about – some classics everyone’s heard of, or we might have Talking Heads mixed with Japanese acid jazz.”

The playlists are printed out for people and there is also a QR code that can be scanned to follow along.

When it comes to following along, Kirksey had the fortune of being able to bring in his Great Gold staff to open Tangerine – something he said was key when curating an environment that people want to come to.

“We built an awesome team at Great Gold and have people who have been there since day one,” said Kirksey. “My main job is nurturing the people that work for me – I can’t do it all by myself. We can’t be great without having awesome people.”

While the restaurant has been filled since opening its doors, Kirksey notes that he sees many familiar faces that are also customers of Great Gold. He’s certain that once the high winter season comes he’ll start to see some new faces, but for now the next goal for the restaurant is to be open seven days a week (they are currently open five).

“We try to make time to dream about what the future could be – put it out there to manifest and make it all happen for us. Great Gold became what I imagined, so it’s the same with this restaurant.”

Tangerine is located at 10412 Donner Pass Rd. in Truckee, CA. For more information you can reach them by phone at (530) 536-5031 or visit them online at tangerinetahoe.com.