Celebrating Sonoma’s La Casa restaurant at the peak of Mount Everest

At the peak of Everest, some 29,032 feet towering in the sky, sits a flag adorned with the logo for La Casa, one of Sonoma’s oldest Mexican restaurants. The unusual promotion was carried out by a Sherpa who may hold a record as the fastest person to reach the snowy summit.

At the end of May, Mingma Dorchi Sherpa, a Nepali mountaineer and a professional trekking guide from Sankhuwasabha District in Nepal, smiled as he held up the La Casa flag before leaving it at the tallest point on earth. He happens to be friends with one of the restaurant’s owners.

Although he grew up in Nepal’s Everest region in a family who guides tourists up the world’s tallest mountain, Pemba Sherpa, a co-owner of La Casa, never made the trek himself, but he’s proud to see the restaurant get peak recognition.

La Casa is owned by Pemba Sherpa, Gyalzen Sherpa, Mingma Sherpa and Pasang Sherpa — all Nepali men who found themselves working in the restaurant industry after moving to the Valley from Nepal in their 20s. They are all Sherpas, but they are not related.

According to an article by CNN, “Before mountain climbing became a popular pastime in the Himalayas, the word Sherpa simply denoted a group of people who migrated to Nepal from Eastern Tibet. This was before the two regions became separate countries...The word ‘sherpa’ has also become a job description on a formal trekking crew, but it is not necessarily filled by ethnic Sherpas.”

Pemba, Gyalzen and Mingma attended primary school together in Khumjung, Nepal. They wanted to stray from the common path of becoming porters, local guides who help take climbers up the mountains. All three decided to avoid the dangers of a career in the Himalayas.

A 2013 Outside Magazine article reported “According to the Himalayan Database, which keeps track of such things, 174 climbing Sherpas have died while working in the mountains in Nepal—15 in the past decade on Everest alone. During that time, at least as many Sherpas were disabled by rockfall, frostbite and altitude-related illnesses like stroke and edema. A Sherpa working above Base Camp on Everest is nearly 10 times more likely to die than a commercial fisherman—the profession the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention rates as the most dangerous nonmilitary job in the U.S.—and more than three and a half times as likely to perish than an infantryman during the first four years of the Iraq War.”

According to Pemba, the men were happy working in the culinary industry in Sonoma County. After bonding with Pasang over their shared heritage, the foursome formed a partnership to buy La Casa in 2015. Two years later, they started Yak and Yeti, a Nepalese and Indian restaurant in Napa — whose flag was also planted at the summit.

Pasang surprised his business partners with photos of their flag at the top of Everest. He’s friends with Mingma Dorchi Sherpa, who says he is the fastest person to get to the summit of Mount Everest with a record time of 6 hours and 1 minute. While the stated world record shows a time 10 hours 56 minutes held by Lhakpa Gelu Sherpa, on Everest, times aren’t always officially tracked.

According Mingma Dorchi, the “Summit Push” for this expedition lasted for about six days from Base Camp to the peak and back. He takes flags on every expedition.

“I feel really proud because we’re from the same town,” Pemba said. “People are really impressed to see the flag on top of Mount Everest.”

La Casa’s is not the only Sonoma restaurant to be represented on Mount Everest. Last June, Pasang Tshering Sherpa displayed the flag of Sonoma Grille at the top of the mountain, a restaurant owned by Nima Sherpa.

The Sherpas growing presence in Sonoma Valley has piqued residents’ interest in Nepalese culture and tradition. Pemba said since becoming a restaurant owner, more people ask about his heritage, something he’s eager to share.

He gets plenty of questions about Everest, a mountain that has long captivated the world’s imaginations. While he hasn’t been back to the region in 10 years, Pemba still has family in Nepal and has watched the climbing industry change significantly in recent decades.

Since the first ever summit in 1953, climbing Everest has become big business, largely due to technological advancements. Since mountaineering equipment has become increasingly advanced, Pemba said, climbing requires more money than skill.

According to Base Camp Magazine, the current cost to climb Everest is over $65,000, which covers permits, a sherpa or guided support, food, oxygen and lodging — travel to the bottom is a separate cost. Almost 4,000 people have climbed to the peak of Everest since 1953, and in 2019, dozens of people formed a human traffic jam as they waited for hours to reach the summit.

For Sherpas, the mountain can have a more spiritual meaning. In the language of Tibet, Mount Everest is known as Chomolungma, meaning goddess mother of the world, or goddess in the sky.

While Pemba never plans to climb to the summit, his business will forever be represented on top of the world.

“I’ve never been to the top, but I feel like I’m there,” Sherpa said.

You can reach Staff Writer Rebecca Wolff at rebecca.wolff@sonomanews.com. On Twitter @bexwolff.