Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Comes to Fort Collins
We may have found a golden ticket in Old Town.
Nuance Chocolate owner, Toby Gadd gladly sat down with me this Tuesday evening in his beautiful chocolate shop on 214 Pine Street in Old Town. The shop has been a success in Fort Collins for about five years. He first came to Colorado for college in Colorado Springs, and later on his wife, Alix Gadd brought them to Fort Collins for graduate school. Gadd and I discussed the food culture in Fort Collins, how it has changed over the years and what needs to be done to maintain a strong food influence in the heart of the city.
Beyond the Oval: What was it like to initially open your business here in Fort Collins?
Gadd: It was good. For being a bar company, like we do it was actually pretty unusual for a town this size. People who know the business pretty well said, “well why are you in Fort Collins? It’s pretty small.” We are here because we live here and we love it here. We have the beer culture and a pretty adventurous spirit; probably because it’s a college town. College towns tend to have more diversity and more things going on. It was the right place, and it was terrific. We loved coming here and being part of that was huge for us.
Beyond the Oval: Fort Collins seems to have a competitive food atmosphere, viewing it from the perspective of a student…
Gadd: Yeah, I think the food as far as a traditional restaurant model, there’s just more capacity than there should be. We are seeing the results in failures… especially in the last couple of years, we’ve seen a lot of places fail and come and go. Traditional restaurants are fairly volatile. In Fort Collins, we have too many chairs, and we’ve seen some bloodbaths… people opening new restaurants despite that over capacity. New restaurants are struggling more than they want people to know. We are not in that traditional restaurant space, so we don’t have that competitive pressure threat, but we’ve certainly watched our neighbors come and go. The number of restaurants that have come and gone is incredible. The turnover is more than you’d ever guess.
Beyond the Oval: How has the food culture within the city itself changed over the last 20 to 30 years?
Gadd: Yeah, certainly the Old Town area, you know when we first came here, Cooper Smith was one of the pillars of what Old Town, Fort Collins really is and was for a long time. It was one of our favorite restaurants and still is. We see places like Bisetti’s and Enzio’s close, that had been around for decades. A lot of the mainstay have closed; restaurants that we had known and loved. We see surprisingly chains close, right, so Old Chicago closed, the larger establishments have failed. We see some outside money come in, like The Kitchen, who failed and now are re-branding it as Next Door; same owner. We’ve seen an up scale in pricing in old town, cost, and efforts to be more upscale; haven’t worked that well, I think. We’ve seen and increase in pricing, but we have not seen an increase in diversity, honestly it’s like a new Mexican place opens up, a new wing place, a new Pizza joint opens up. There’s a lot of room for ethnic food that we don’t see right now. We could use Argentinian food or we could use some Baltic food. A lot of places like that, that aren’t there. Everybody comes in and says, “Oh pizza is working great!” So they open up a pizza place, and then one place closes and so on. The diversity really lacks in Fort Collins in general.
Beyond the Oval: Are there other factors that are failing business?
Gadd: Too many seats. Fort Collins does eat out, but it’s a smaller area. The people who fill up the seats don’t come from big areas; it’s not like Denver. Students, while they certainly help the restaurant scene, don’t have that much money, so when people open up more upscale, fancy places for the students… which is what largely feeds the Old Town area… you know, that’s not terrible successful. Students will eat out here and there, for special occasions, but not like a major tax center. I think people in Fort Collins tend to spend money on the experience, not just to go flaunt the cash. We have a more laid back, not as showy community. I think diversity will attract and support the city. Neighborhoods would support the diversity. Also, I think Fort Collins sort of excludes people from certain economic brackets. I do wish there was more economic diversity within Fort Collins. People will come in and buy a few chocolates versus a few bars.
Beyond the Oval: Can you talk more about how the city’s culture has affected the food scene?
Gadd: I think the brewery industry really initiated that in Fort Collins… they’re doing flights of beers, something we stole directly from the breweries. We do flight of chocolate. People outside of the area don’t know what a “flight” means… anyone from Fort Collins pretty much knows what a flight is. Breweries have developed a collaborative scene with suppliers and other locals. They’ve pushed it beyond. We’re the same way and got into the scene as well; working with local coffee roasters, distilleries, and breweries. We work with collaborations and this has been huge for Nuance. Making the best flavors or flavor comparison has been huge for us. Making things from scratch and not just re-branding. The “maker community” has been huge for us. This community has fed into the food and brewery scene and other small businesses.
Beyond the Oval: Is there anything else you’d like to add?
Gadd: Yeah, the question for Old Town businesses is how to keep independence and fun. Largely, Old Town environments like this, you know in the 80's, this place was mostly abandoned, a wasteland, places locked up, it was a place you did not want to go. As it rebuilt, the first businesses were independent places. But then we see big chains come in and displace the independent businesses. We see this on Pearl Street in Boulder and on 16th Street Mall in Denver… the loss of independence. Fort Collins has made the decision to stay independent and stay cool and stay away from a “chain desert” where all you have are big chains. Once you become a chain area, the pressure is there and that’s an existential threat. Maybe we’ll look back in 20 years and think, “wow, that was the Golden Age of Old Town!” Right now.
I want to thank Toby Gadd once again for sitting down with me this week. His passion and business comes from the heart and is shown in his product. I recommend anyone to visit Nuance Chocolate on 214 Pine Street in Old Town, and stop by to say hello to Toby and his crew.
Salute!
