ALMA • The bearded, long-haired, tattooed man behind America’s proclaimed highest fried chicken in terms of altitude — and also maybe Colorado’s hottest in terms of recent popularity — is wearing a baggy shirt and sweats and sandals as he dashes up the road to greet a customer.

“I’m Otto!” he says with a booming voice and hearty handshake.

Otto is Brian Beck’s nickname, for his undeniable resemblance to the Simpsons character who shreds guitar and drives the schoolbus. And Otto is the name on the trailer here beside the road through this drive-by town above 10,500 feet.

Thanks to Otto’s Food Cart, people have stopped driving by.

Says a Texan at the grab-and-go window now: “My parents drive from Austin just for this. We go out of our way to come here.”

Beck laughs and claps, and you’d think he could be heard in the mountains above: “That’s awesome!”

“Awesome” is how a growing fan base might describe Otto’s fried chicken sandwich.

The base has grown since 2019, when Beck moved into the trailer that had long been occupied and vacated by one food concept after another. Within a few years, it became apparent the fate of Otto’s would be different. In 2022, Beck expanded with a brick-and-mortar spot in nearby Fairplay.

About 12½ tons of chicken were sold last year, says Beck’s friend and general manager, Jordan Buller. “We’re gonna push 15 this year for sure,” he says.

Along with the slogan in Alma, “America’s highest fried chicken,” Buller came up with another: “Don’t eat and drive.”

“I started saying that,” he says, “because you’re gonna be wearing it.”

You’re better off not driving ahead to Hoosier Pass and Breckenridge. Better to sit at a picnic table here and enjoy the delicately fried, juicy chicken between a lightly toasted brioche bun that tries to contain a variety of toppings and sauces.

The Special is topped with melted cheddar and shredded lettuce and slathered in a fresh, creamy dill aioli. The Original: pickles and a spoonful of honey butter, recalling a simple delight from Beck’s native South. Amid the piled-high Colossal, the Carolina sweet mustard recalls his specific native place.

Beck grew up in South Carolina, where he was never one for sitting in a classroom. Booted from high school, he’d go on to earn his GED and enroll in culinary school in Charleston. He wasn’t one for that, either.

“I dropped out,” he says, “because I was already doing what I was going to school to do.”

He was already working in restaurants, over the years doing everything from washing dishes, cooking, tending bar and managing. He’d work, make enough money to quit and travel to some festival, then he’d return to find another job. Partying and working late — this was no way to live, he knew.

He worked in dives and finer dining establishments, including Blue River Bistro in Breckenridge, where he moved in 2010.

“I went completely broke to move out here,” he says with a chuckle. “I was broke anyway.”

He credits the move for changing his life. And that’s easy to see here at Otto’s Food Cart, where the love of his life, Emma Kelleher, shows up with their 3-year-old daughter. Sadie runs into Beck’s arms.

“Best thing that ever happened to me,” he says.

To which Kelleher counters with a jokeful reminder. Yes, Kelleher was the first best thing — the meditative, nature-loving type he met in Breckenridge who saw him for who he truly was.

“He sees things differently,” Kelleher says. She adds: “If you can laugh with somebody all the time, even through thick and thin and all the emotions, it makes life better.”

That was Beck — quick to laugh, never taking himself or hardship too seriously. Life is short, he seemed to always know.

“Not always,” he says. “Not before I was almost crushed.”

Working on a farm in Switzerland — his first getaway before Breckenridge — an accident involving heavy equipment landed him in intensive care “for a long time,” he says. “When I got out, my perspective changed dramatically.”

Life was indeed short. And so he’d live where he always wanted to live, in Colorado.

In Breckenridge he played a lot of basketball. That’s how he met Buller. A term on the court could describe Beck in life, Buller came to see.

“I’ve never met someone who was so willing to pivot,” he says. “A lot of people get stuck in their ways and they hesitate, but Otto is somebody who is like, ‘This is definitely a path, I’ll take it.”

Rather than continue renting after his landlord put the place up for sale, Beck saw a path to build a home of his own. Alongside Buller and Kelleher, he did just that, finished in 2019 on land near the base of Hoosier Pass.

Up the pass, he saw the food cart available.

“I was like, Well, you gotta do something!” Kelleher says with a laugh. “And that had been a dream of his forever, to have something like this. Life sometimes just gives you what you’ve been asking for.”

And sometimes more. “It just took off,” Beck says.

Otto’s would be “the culmination of all the places I’ve worked,” he says. “All the good things I’ve seen and all the bad things I’ve seen.”

Starting with the good: hormone- and antibiotic-free chicken marinated in buttermilk, coated in gluten-free flour from a Denver bakery, seasoned with herbs, spices and brown sugar and fried golden. The buns and other ingredients have been locally sourced, helping to explain a sandwich’s $16 price tag.

“We’re not the cheapest,” Beck says. That’s also to address a bad thing he’s seen around the industry: underpaid employees.

One employee in the food cart window is Bobby Lechner, whose pride is represented by the Otto’s logo tattooed on his arm.

“It’s more than just the food here,” he says. “I grew up without a close-knit family, and this place showed me what that’s supposed to be.”

Another worker pulls up in a car Beck purchased for him; Beck’s payment plan would be better than the one with interest. He’s helped another employee with an attorney, and another trying to live sober.

“He’s never been like, ‘How much money are we making?’ His first question is always, ‘How’s the staff?’” Buller says.

But the money is important, Beck clarifies with another laugh.

“You can’t get it twisted. I’m lazy!” he says. “I’ve done most of this stuff so I can get away with doing nothing; I just surround myself with hard-working people. Because yeah, one of my favorite things to do is nothing.”

Maybe expanding to a third location would help with that. Or maybe it would hamper that, make him busier. He’s thinking now as his little girl eats a peach on his lap.

“There’s a real balance between needing money for financial security and living how you want to live, and just working and working in pursuit of money,” he says. “I know so many people who are richer than I am, but I’m the wealthiest person I know.”