Gigi Sandoval-Long has a knack for supporting and bringing together the community around her. It’s always been her thing.

Nursing seemed to fit that mold perfectly, so that’s where she started her career. Decades out from starting her professional career, she is still community building. These days, though, she’s not doing it from the inside of the hospital — she’s doing it from inside a hot-pink food truck sporting a Rosie the Riveter-inspired cartoon chicken. 

Her fried chicken earned her a reputation throughout Colorado and created a demand statewide. A stop in Silverthorne would end up adding a brick-and-mortar location to her two-truck business. It was an offer she originally shot down. 

GiGi’s Betchin Chick-N held a grand opening celebration on May 10 for its Silverthorne location, which is housed inside of La Quinta Inn & Suites, 560 Silverthorne Lane. 

Sandoval-Long said the hotel’s manager, Mary Wilbanks, tried the chicken during the truck’s stop at Murdoch’s Ranch and Home Supply in Silverthorne in July 2024 and immediately sent over a Facebook message. In the message, Sandoval-Long said Wilbanks gave praise to her product and identified herself as having Southern roots and a standard for chicken. She then proceeded to offer her the opportunity to move into a spot that previously housed the Old Chicago Pizza and Taproom, Sandoval-Long said.

Sandoval-Long said she and her husband, Arthur Long, found success in his idea to do “food truck tours” across Colorado. The trucks were sustaining them financially, and they didn’t need the income from a brick-and-mortar location. A second stop in Silverthorne changed that. Long toured the area offered up by Wilbanks and told his wife he had a vision for it.

 When she still couldn’t get behind the idea, he deployed another method. 

“He put a PowerPoint together around three days later after doing a market analysis of Summit County, Silverthorne, the I-70 corridor and of this hotel and said ‘here’s (how) we make it work,'” she said. 

Long said he is ecstatic to have a brick-and-mortar location as a home base after years on the road. His special addition to the Silverthorne location? A massage chair he put in front of a window facing the mountains, a view the pair said was their end goal all along. 

GiGi’s Betchin Chick-N got its start in the mountains, first securing a home for the truck in Salida. It’s a town Sandoval-Long’s mother called home and the rural sanctuary she said she was looking for after years in Denver. 

The couple first found success starting their own facility maintenance company in Denver, which they relocated to Salida in 2022. First on the list after the move for these two foodies was to find their new favorite local eats. Long said he grew up with Philadelphia soul food and Sandoval-Long has fond memories of Latin cuisine — so the bar was high.

When they didn’t find anything that met their standards for fried chicken, Long suggested they create one. They combined aspects of both of their cultures in a new cuisine Sandoval-Long described to be “Latin-soul food fusion” and came up with a recipe that’s currently patent pending. 

When Long asked his wife what their chicken food truck should be called, she said she responded “Gigi’s, of course.” 

It’s a name with multiple meanings, she said, noting it’s also a nod to grandmas, who commonly go by “gigi” in her culture, and their home cooking. She also said she had her grandson, Giannis, in mind, who, she said, already has a ridiculously high standard for fried chicken at just 4 years old. 

She pulled the term “betchin” from friends in Orange County, California, who commonly use the endearing term “betch.” Since it’s a woman-owned business, she wanted emphasis on the “chick” in “chicken” and decided to go with the spelling “chick-n.”

In another homage to women, she directed the designer of her business logo to make the cartoon chicken based off of a World War II cultural icon, Rosie the Riveter.

Gigi’s Betchin Chick-N is located inside La Quinta Inn & Suites at 560 Silverthorne Lane. Combo plates on the menu start at $14.50 and go up to $16.50, and platters range from $17.50 to $41.99. Appetizers range from $1.25 to $17.

The spot is typically open from 3-11 p.m., but hours open are currently in flux for mud season. The most accurate hours can be found on their Facebook page at Facebook.com/gigisbetchinchickn/.