MA D E IN
Made in Colorado: DOING IT LIKE NO ONE ELSE CAN
By The Gazette
Mountains. Dogs. Beer. If this were a quiz, Colorado would be the answer.
Sure, Centennial State clichés are sweet cachet, but those of us who call her home know there’s so much more going on — being made, enjoyed and redefined — in the ruggedly rarefied, superlative place everyone wants on their T-shirts.
From the Western Slope to the eastern plains, Coloradans are doing Colorado like no one else can, creating wears that hew to the above mentioned stereotypes (all gloriously true!) in masterful and groundbreaking ways, and bringing together communities with high-concept food and culture experiences that focus the world through a uniquely Colorado lens.
Tug on your moisture-wicking compression socks and join us on a brief trek of some of those many offerings.
INSIDE
5 | Colorado Springs food hall aims to transport
8 | Born out of stomach-turning frustration
10 | Salida bikepacking company prioritizes product longevity and sustainability
12 | Making the world better, one healed body at a time
13 | Colorado-made ideas for gifting
14 | Astronaut Ice Cream gives kids a taste of space
15 | Snapshots of Colorado favorites
16 | Lems Shoes: barefoot design at work
17 | From the archives
STAFF
DESIGNER
Samantha Thomas
PHOTOGRAPHERS
Christian Murdock
Parker Seibold
Jerilee Bennett
EDITOR
Jerry Herman
REPORTERS
Stephanie Earls
Mary Shinn
Abbey Soukup
O’Dell Isaac
Mackenzie Bodell
‘A
little bit Narnia’
Colorado Springs food hall aims to transport
By Stephanie Earls
People explore the restaurants and shops inside COATI. Christian Murdock
COATI-shock
[ko'äde-'shäk] noun
A brief moment of geo-displacement upon entering a certain Colorado Springs food hall, which is definitely bigger on the inside.
When Finch Gortz’s parents recommended a newish food hall in Colorado Springs a few years ago, he took the advice to heart, and with a grain of salt. Even cool parents are from a different generation, with much earlier bedtimes.
“A place that appeals to a lot of different demographics … people who have different tastes and schedules?
That’s kind of unusual,” said Gortz.
COATI was finding its groove, growing its rep and repertoire of start-ups slinging eclectic edible and other offerings inside 20,000 square feet of remodeled former warehouse in the historic Trolley Block.
Calling it a food hall back then was … fair.
Calling it a food hall now is like calling The Broadmoor a hotel.
From the techno pantomime of packed silent discos, to live music, multiple bars, market days, and an ever-evolving range of street food-style options that push creative boundaries and expectations, COATI is a holistic sensory experience on three levels, with art alley overflow and mountain views from the roof.
“You can go to other food halls in other cities for food and drink, but you can’t go somewhere for food, drink, art, thrifting, dancing, music and all kinds of other events,” said COATI marketing manager Torie Berkel. “COATI is … not your cookie cutter kind of food hall.”
COATI, which stands for Colorado Automatic Trolley Interchange, can feel like its own little pocket universe. Walking through the front doors is “a little bit Narnia,” said Springs resident Carson Went, reflecting on the sprawling spot where she chose to celebrate her June birthday, and to which she returned on a recent Saturday to score some deals at Vintage & Vinyl.
“There’s just so much variety, for sure,” Went said, gazing around at 6 | MADE IN COLORADO
multiple bars and restaurant “pods” slinging chef-curated salad and grain bowls, bodega-style sandwiches, soul food, Korean and gourmet Mexican ice pops. “It can feel like … is this still Colorado Springs?”
You bet it is.
The brainchild of Aaron Ewton, owner of the Atlas Restaurant Group, and PigLatin and Cocina founder Andres Velez, COATI began as an idealistic mission to create an entirely different type of space, with entirely different food options; a place both for the community and a testing ground where start-ups could safely try out their concepts and hone their craft.
“They have the skill sets from the individuals, but maybe they don’t have the financial backing or the experience of owning and operating their own space by themselves. We help them with that part,” said Velez, a former Army cook who parlayed his successful Springs food truck business into a successful brick-and-mortar operation, before his “what’s next?” brought him and Ewton to the doors of a then undeveloped space on South Tejon Street.
Not every startup at COATI has a Cinderella story, but a number have outgrown their initial incubation phase, including Haole Hawaiian Grindz, now operating in the for-
Customers enter COATI during the fourth anniversary celebration Sept. 7 in downtown Colorado Springs. Photos by Christian Murdock
Games and T-Shirts hang on the brick walls of Uprise Taphouse.
mer T-Byrds location on East Kiowa Street.
Founded as a food truck before taking over a vacant spot at COATI, Luchals still operates its pod, but its “Soulful Seafood” creations are also available at a new location in Fountain.
“What’s really funny is we thought we would be more of an incubator on the food, and it’s really turned out that we also ended up being an incubator in the arts and events space,” said Ewton, whose business also offers public and private event space rentals.
Discreet Beats started hosting “just a little silent disco” in the common area during COATI’s early days. DJ Codie Erickson now has “silent discos all over,” said Berkel, and the monthly Saturday night dances at COATI can draw between 500 and 600 people, a crowd that often spills into the alley.
Live music has also found a platform.
Gortz recalled his first visit to the food hall his parents recommended, and thinking how cool it would be if his Springs New Wave band, Glitter Porn, could someday book a gig there. Maybe for a late lunch crowd?
“Lo and behold, a year later we’re playing at the rooftop bar, at 4 o’clock on a Saturday,” Gortz said. “My parents were there, which was awesome.”
Vintage & Vinyl became one of only a
handful of women-owned record stores in Colorado when it opened in July, as COATI’s first permanent retail tenant. That month also saw the kick-off of a Sunday “sustainable market” — dozens of vendors selling vintage and upcycled clothing, handmade items, collectables and records — that runs through Sept. 30.
“The COATI team has been great, like whatever you want to try out? Tattoos? Tarot? Drag shows, cars, motorcycles …. It’s like, ‘Ok, let’s do it,” said Vintage & Vinyl
Uprise Taphouse
stomach-turning
FRUSTRATION BORN OUT OF
By Mary Shinn
eff Vierling started looking for the right nutrition to keep endurance athletes fueled after he finished his first 100mile mountain bike race in Leadville.
His wife and business partner, Jenny Vierling, was there waiting for him with a video camera and a hug at the finish line.
But his stomach betrayed him at the very end and his breakfast, in recognizable form, ended up in a trash can.
“That was the inauspicious moment that got it started,” he explained. The Vierlings told the story of their Durango-based company, Tailwind Nutrition, from France in August when they were promoting their products at the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc, an event that draws about 10,000 runners from all over the world.
After the stomach-turning ending to his first race, Vierling went looking for a solution, trying products and then diving into the medical literature.
“I started to realize that most of the products I was trying had ingredients that were challenging to digest and that didn’t make a lot of sense,” he said.
Photos courtesy of Tailwind Nutrition
So then he started making his own mix based on how the small intestine absorbs energy and sharing it with athletic friends in Durango, meeting them in parking lots to hand off baggies full of white powder.
The powder turned into Tailwind’s endurance fuel, a mixture of carbohydrates and electrolytes, focused on keeping athletes going hour after hour.
Jenny Vierling, a cyclist herself, was convinced of the effectiveness of the mix after her stomach shut down during a long-distance race to Leadville. After that, she was convinced to try it and during another long-distance race, experienced the difference it could make.
It also offers simplicity to athletes that can be overwhelmed with options.
“It’s your carbohydrates and your electrolytes and your hydration. … It’s really those three components, sticking it all in a bottle, pour, shake, go, you’re done, and you just do that every hour, and it’s consistent,” she said.
Since the company was founded in 2012, its distribution has expanded across 40 countries. They have also introduced new products focused on recovery and hydration.
In addition to a quality product, the Vierlings brought entrepreneurial skills to the company with experience in other start-ups, such as a software company in Durango that was building an online community for spine surgeons. Jenny brought the marketing skills, while Jeff had a program management background and could work on the internal infrastructure of the company, they said. They also had strong local support.
“We were selling it so fast that one of us would be running home to make more,” Jeff Vierling recalled. In the early days, the company made the powder in a kitchen aid that filled the kitchen with the smell of pixie sticks.
As the company grew, the Vierlings bought their first mixer to make 100 pounds at a time, but it was $800 more to buy one with a motor, so Jeff would hand mix the product, 50 cranks at a time.
Tailwind Nutrition brings endurance to athletes globally
in the community with higher costs of living.
Into the future, the company wants to focus on environmentally friendly practices and it recently introduced scoops for its mixes made from the stems left over from sugar cane production that would otherwise be burned. When customers are
done with the scoops they can be composted, Jeff explained.
The two want to bring innovation to sports nutrition, an industry awash in single serve packets, and help reduce the amount of material used that ends up as waste, he said.
“We’re really excited to tackle that,” he said.
The late Ed Zink, the owner of Mountain Bile Specialists, offered their mix for sale in his shop and allowed them to set up a marketing table at the Iron Horse Bicycle Classic, the race he founded.
The endurance fuel was a hit at the 2012 race.
Then they partnered with High Dessert Food Company in Dolores, sharing space and employees with them.
After more than a decade of growth, the company now manufactures its products in a 15,000-square-foot facility near the Durango-La Plata County Airport and while transportation in and out of the area can be tough, with the nearest interstate hours away by car, the couple was committed to keeping the operations local.
The company still does all its own research and development, and running its own manufacturing allows them to make smaller batches, respond to the market demands and ensure quality, Jeff said. Keeping manufacturing local has allowed them to employ about 30 people with well-paying work, critical
Tailwind Nutrition manufactures its sports drink mixes near the Durango-La Plata County Airport.
OVEJA NEGRA
Salida bikepacking company prioritizes product longevity, sustainability
By Abbey Soukup
Parker Seibold
Lane Willson identifies herself as a weirdo — and so does her bikepacking company, Oveja Negra, which translates to Black Sheep in Spanish.
Founding the company alongside her husband, Monte, in 2012, the Willsons have been creating and evolving their adventure-style bike bags for more than a decade to be as sustainable, durable and efficient as possible.
Holding two locations in the river town of Salida, Oveja Negra boasts a small chain factory warehouse on the east side and a retail storefront downtown.
I met with Lane Willson off of a recreational trail on one of her team’s cherished “wiggle walks,” a time when the staff takes a moment to stretch and reset in the outdoors amid their work day.
The bouncy seamstress was quick to introduce herself, her team and pup, Fluffernutter, who meandered between employees and Willson, guiding everyone back to the warehouse factory.
Along with her love for the “type 2” fun of cycling and outdoor recreation and walking to the beat of her own drum, Willson has a business model that goes beyond making money. It works to prioritize the well-being and balance in the lives of her workers and herself.
Willson explained that what started as a favor for her then-boyfriend when the two were living in Leadville evolved naturally into the business seen in Salida today.
As a seamstress for more than two and a half decades, Willson knows a thing or two about custom stitchwork. When husband Monte asked her to make him a bag for his mountain bike, she cheerfully took up the task.
“He said, ‘I want to buy this bikepacking gear but I can’t find it anywhere,’ and so I was like ‘yeah, I can make it,’” Lane Willlson said.
From there, the snowball of their custom-made bike bags picked up speed and got bigger than the two could have ever imagined. While Monte focused on designing the style of the bags, Lane worked to craft them.
“He was the cyclist who taught me how to ride and I was the seamstress who taught him how to sew,” Lane Willson said.
The bags fit onto most bikes , working with the structure of the frame and handlebars to provide a minimalist appearance.
The two most popular styles of bags — the “Chuck Bucket” and “Snack Pack” — fasten directly onto the front of the bike on the handlebars, allowing for easy access to phones, keys, dog leashes and grub.
While Oveja Negra’s sacks were initially meant to cater to the mountain bike community, the bags can serve every type of rider from intense downhill overnighters to those who enjoy a work commute on their bike.
sustainability.
“My goal is to keep everything out of the f---ing landfill,” Lane Willson said, and she and her company work to honor that sentiment through a variety of practices.
Oveja Negra is completely
He was the cyclist who taught me how to ride and I was the seamstress who taught him how to sew.
— LANE WILLSON
Even those without the cycle bug can enjoy Oveja Negra’s products, as they offer lifestyle bags including their new crossbody and tote bags.
What became evident speaking with the eccentric co-founder was her passion for
U.S.-made, from the fabric to the zippers. Everything is cut and sewn in Salida, and new products are tested out locally in small batches before they are produced on a larger scale for the brand’s online shop.
The retail location offers 15-minute repairs of anything in need of a quick fix, whether that be a product purchased through the company or oth-
erwise. Willson’s team at Oveja Negra is consistently working to ensure little textile waste is produced through the production process, consistently looking for innovative ways to find use for all the fabric and other materials the company works with.
The Wack Pack was created out of a need to utilize excess fabric scraps. Instead of following a color wave through an entire product design, Oveja Negra uses whatever fabric is left over to create additional products, however wacky the combination may be.
“A lot of other bikepacking bag companies are working a bit quicker but with less, and their bags aren’t built to last. Our products are thoughtfully designed and created, Oveja Negra is really walking the talk,” longtime employee Sheridan Plummer said.
“I think our products are fun, we don’t take ourselves too seriously – in the quality we do, yes, but in our content and colors, our goal is to be a fun, functional accessory,” Plummer continued.
Oveja Negra is completely U.S.-made and each bag is cut and sewn in Salida. Parker Seibold
Making the world better,
ONE HEALED body at a time
By O’Dell Isaac
The 2024 winner of the “Coolest Thing Made in Colorado” contest isn’t large, or loud, or even visually arresting. About 12 inches long by 5 ½ inches wide and elliptical in shape, it resembles a “deflated football,” according to its creators. Thanks to regenerative light therapy technology, it boosts the body’s natural ability to heal itself.
It’s called the Jazz Band Live, and the company that created it hopes to make it a musthave for anyone looking to heal faster and live better.
“I thought (the Coolest Thing) was just kind of a token award at first,” said Perry Kamel, CEO of the Centennial-based DNA Vibe. “But it’s turning into a pretty big deal.”
DNA Vibe has been in business for about eight years, with the first four being dedicated mostly to research and development, Kamel said. The result of those years of study is a unique, wearable healing device — the only one of its kind made in the U.S. — that stimulates healing at the molecular level.
“The DNA molecule is the one and only thing in our body that stimulates regenerative healing,” Kamel explained.
“When the body is injured in any way — cuts, burns, bruises, tears, pulls, strains — DNA switches on and begins to build healthy tissue to replace the damaged tissue.”
The Jazz Band Live, which can be worn on any part of the body, uses infrared light, magnetic pulse and microvibration to help boost the body’s natural, DNA-driven regenerative process.
“It allows us to prevent injury and boost recovery,” Kamel said.
The company’s signature product has been featured on the “Today” show and “Good Morning America,” as well as numerous national publications. In addition to being named “Coolest Thing Made in Colorado” by the Colorado Chamber of Commerce, the Jazz Band Live has also been named USA Today’s Best Luxury Gift for Travelers and WebMd’s Best New Holistic Product.
Kamel said that while he is honored by the accolades, they are secondary to DNA Vibe’s core mission.
“We’re doing more than just selling a product that’s pretty innovative and cool,” he said. “We’re working to make the world a better place, one better life at a time. That’s our motto, and that’s our mission.”
Numerous Olympic and professional athletes — including players from the Denver Broncos, Colorado Rockies, New Orleans Saints, New York Yankees, among others — are using the device to prevent injury or speed up healing, according to Kamel. But, he said, the Jazz Band Live isn’t just for elite athletes.
“We’ve got about 100,000 happy customers,” Kamel claimed.
“If they buy the product and it doesn’t help them, we will give them a full refund. We’ll even pay for return shipping. We do that because we’re hugely confident that it’s going to help.”
The Jazz Band Live. Courtesy of DNA Vibe
We love celebrating the hands, minds and hearts of this fine state.
BOOK OF PIKES PEAK PAINTINGS
Some folks say they could stare at Pikes Peak all day. Those folks should have this book on their coffee table, “Pikes Peak America’s Mountain: 100 Oil Paintings by Jack Denton.” The artist spent years capturing the storied mountain from its many angles, amid all seasons and elements. The pages make us fall in love all over again with the peak that inspired the song “America the Beautiful.” gracepointpublishing.com
COLORADOSOL WOODEN SUNGLASSES
These sustainable shades are handmade using high-quality wood and UV 400 polarized lenses. The sunglasses are made from a variety of woods, including zebra wood, oak, ebony, bamboo and walnut. The pairs are also durable, with all glasses being double hinged. coloradosol.com
TOURMALINE JEWELRY
Celestial Crystal Jewelry sells handmade pieces of jewelry made with tourmaline. The gemstone tourmaline comes in a wide range of colors, from green to pinks and colors in-between. The shop also takes custom orders to make your gift extra special.
Colorado-made ideas for gifting
became a business team with shoppers loving the bath products and the special, even personalized, candles, now in shops all around the state and on Etsy. huntershope soaps.com
EVERWOOD COS PROPAGATION STATIONS
celestialcrystaljewelry.com
HUNTER’S HOPE SOAPS AND CANDLES
A gift with a beautiful story and wonderful scents. Hunter’s Hope was created to empower the developmentally disabled and indeed, Hunter is real, a “quiet, kind, funny” Colorado Springs native and high school graduate diagnosed on the autism spectrum. His mother and sister-in-law had made soaps and sugar scrubs for gifts, with Hunter choosing colors and scents, including his favorite Larkspur Lavender. Then they
A great gift for the plant lover in your life, the propagation station by Everwood COS is a wooden plant display laser-cut with unique designs and different shapes. Each station comes with a glass vial to get started propagating.
etsy.com/shop/EverwoodCOS
BLUE BUTTERFLIES TAXIDERMY
At Novis Mortem Collective, they happily and creatively call themselves an “oddities gallery, a curiosity gallery.” Beautiful blue butterflies are the creations of owner and curator Beatrice “Bea” Solo as part of her entomological fine art with
a focus on insect taxidermy. They also have insect jewelry and Christmas ornaments with butterfly wings. And the gallery has a famous fan after star Alice Cooper, his wife Sheryl, his tour manager and guitarist recently shopped there before a local concert.
novismortemcollective.com
LOVE HER LEGGINGS
Tara DeAngelis scoured Como Creek in the Rocky Mountains for aspen leaves this year. Not to press between the pages of a book, but as inspiration for her high-waisted, eco-friendly, compression yoga leggings. The gorgeous, buttery yellow and steel gray pants are printed using solvent-free sublimation inks and feature EcoPoly fiber, which requires much less energy and water use during manufacturing. And these pantaloons are made to order by hand. DeAngelis offers many stylish leggings in her Etsy shop. Search for loveherleggings at etsy.com
Astronaut Ice Cream GIVES KIDS A TASTE OF SPACE
By Mary Shinn
Kids around the country, mostly at museums and theme parks, get a taste of what it would be like to live in space with Astronaut Ice Cream.
Anyone expecting the cold and soft textures of a traditional ice cream sandwich is in for a shock when they bite down on the freeze-dried bar. With 98% of the liquid removed, the sandwiches are crunchy. They still melt in your mouth, but more like a breath-mint than ice cream.
You can also set half of it aside, in the console of your car, in the heat of summer without any worry it might melt.
The Boul der-based company’s founder Ron Smith expected freeze-dried ice cream would be a bit of a fad — but it’s had staying power with Astronaut Foods celebrating its 50th an niversary this year.
“I think it captured the imagination and it has for multiple generations,” said Chris Dickerson, marketing director.
It can also be practical for those heading out on the trail backpacking.
The ice cream bars are sold alongside the freeze-dried meals
of its sister company, Backpacker’s Pantry, at REI. The meals, such as mac and cheese and pad Thai, are reconstituted with hot water at camp, while the ice cream just like trendy freezedried candy is eaten hard. The Astronaut Foods brand also makes freeze-dried fruit and Dickerson expects regular freeze-dried ice cream could tains its nutritional value and its flavor, making it a good fit in space, he said.
Supplying private space companies could be small new niche for the company, although nothing is final, Dickerson said.
“It’s been really fun having those conversations,” he said.
Employees of Astronaut Foods and Backpacker’s Pantry fill packets with chocolate chips to be used in a cheesecake at their headquarter in Boulder.
Photos by Jerilee Bennett
Freeze-dried food products are in bins to be sold in stores as Astronaut Foods or Backpacker’s Pantry.
While Patsy’s Candies in Colorado Springs has had three different owners over the century of being open, its quality has never suffered, according to current owners.
PATSY’S CANDIES FRANGI0SA FARMS CELESTIAL SEASONINGS
Frangiosa Farms, based out of Parker, is a veteran-owned small business that specializes in infused honey intended to keep customers “feeling good and naturally well.”
The small business was founded back in 2008 and only uses 100% pure and raw Rocky Mountain honey for its infused goods. The infusions contain USDA organic adaptogenic and herbal extracts of Lion’s mane mushroom, Reishi mushroom, black elderberry and golden turmeric.
Frangiosa Farms’ founder Nick French served in the Marine Corps for a number of years. After 20 more years
The candy shop opened in 1903 when an Irishman named Patsy Mehaney followed a dream. Mehaney first only sold caramel and chocolate popcorn, which are still sold using that same original recipe.
The store has had a wider variety of sweets available for many years through the current owners, the Niswonger family. Items are sale now include a full line of chocolates, peanut brittle, English toffee and additional varieties of popcorn, according to Patsy’s website.
By Mackenzie Bodell
working in finance and real estate, French decided to change paths: saving the bees.
In 2008, he began working with his wife on the business. Their goal was to deliver a product that enhanced the wellness of honey consumers while also giving back to the bees.
According to the Frangiosa website, its artisan honey is made through the use of sustainable and ethical practices, such as using essential oils instead of chemicals to spray hives. Their methods are designed to promote prosperous bee colonies.
For those looking to get their fix, Frangiosa Farms honey is available at 30 locations in Colorado. There are two Colorado Springs locations: Natural Grocers on Nevada Avenue and Sign Of The Rose Florist on Academy Boulevard.
Claiming to have kickstarted the herbal tea industry in Colorado back in 1969, Celestial Seasonings Tea Factory in Boulder is going strong with 1.6 billion cups of tea served a year.
Celestial Seasonings started when one of the founders, Mo Siegal, handpicked wild herbs from Colorado’s Rocky Mountains to use in the company’s very first cup of tea.
Siegal sold his herbal teas to health food stores in hand-sewn muslin bags. Celestial Seasonings says that it was in those years that the company truly began to define what the herbal category would end up becoming for them.
In the many years since, the factory has expanded and launched
The Niswonger family has had three generations help run the store over the years of their ownership. Even the skills to make the candy itself have been passed down through generations, with former owners teaching their predecessors so the quality never suffers.
“It’s just great being able to carry on a legacy and a tradition,” one of the current owners, Si Niswonger, said. “We have been blessed with wonderful employees and a really close-knit staff.” While the original location Mehaney opened up in Manitou Springs is still standing as a concession stand, the community can get their Patsy’s Candies fix at the Niswongers’ Colorado Springs location at 1540 S. 21st St.
several new types of herbal teas, green teas, black teas, wellness teas, cold brew iced teas and kombuchas. More than 100 of their ingredients are sourced from 35plus countries.
“Though we’ve grown so much since we first started out picking wild herbs in the Rockies, we are still driven by that same entrepreneurial spirit and a passion for making tea that’s good for people and the planet,” Celestial Seasonings says on their website.
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Jerilee Bennett
LEMS SHOES
barefoot design works with the human form, not against it
By Abbey Soukup
Lems Shoes operating out of Boulder is working to ground and improve the health of its customers — by literally keeping people closer to the ground.
Embracing the barefoot lifestyle, Lems sneakers and boots embrace the natural physique of the foot by letting it work as it’s intended, through a wide-toe box design and minimal platform sole.
“Unlike shoe companies that invest in cushioning and lifting your heels higher off the ground and shaping shoes based on fashion trends with a narrow tapering toe box, we wanted to shape our shoes around the human form,” said Andrew Rademacher, Lems’ owner and founder.
“It’s about getting your foot closer to the ground as a natural stabilizer — you’re less likely to turn your ankle and face lower chances of leg injuries. Totally flat shoes
allow you to have the best posture, taking stress off the knees and lower back.”
“People tend to forget about the strength of their own feet; it all starts from the bottom up,” Rademacher continued.
After starting the company in 2011, he moved Lems from Pennsylvania to the Front
Range to allow for the company’s mission to be more aligned with its location.
While the shoes are manufactured overseas, Lems products are designed and engineered in Colorado to ensure functionality outdoors.
“We moved to Colorado because of the access to the outdoors and to test shoes in the mountains across the Front Range,” Rademacher said.
Another focus for Lems’ move to Colorado was to prioritize sustainability through the outdoors culture present in the state.
While Lems Shoes embraces sustainability through its minimal design, utilizing fewer materials in the shoe structure, the company also uses recycled materials for some of its products.
The Primal Eco lifestyle shoe is made from 50% sustainable materials, for example.
While a Lems brick-and-mortar location is an idea in the making, the company is mainly an online marketplace.
However, you can find Lems Shoes at Pedestrian Shops at 1425 Pearl St. in Boulder.
Womens Outlander Waterproof boots made by LEMS in Boulder. Shoes courtesy of Routes Outfitter. Photos by Jerilee Bennett
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A few of the top unique local businesses we’ve featured in the past
Small Colorado Springs manufacturer works with big players
The modest workshop for Greg Ames’ high-tech sensor business, Blue Line Engineering, appears as a dot on the map of downtown Colorado Springs, a place where the storylines of celestial bodies and humanity’s workings intersect.
Behind office buildings’ shadows, where dead-end streets and train tracks meet, the old 4,800-square-foot brick AT&SF Freight House serves as Blue Line’s laboratory, test site, manufacturing facility and distribution center.
There, the company’s 15-person team designs and creates precision sensors for telescopes and satellites, as well as for aircraft and spacecraft used by agencies and companies such as NASA, Lockheed Martin and the federal government.
Ames started the company in 1994 in what used to be a chicken coop and coal bin for an 1896 carriage home.
Blue Line Engineering was awarded by Colorado Manufacturing Awards 2023 Manufacturer of the Year. Despite accolades, Ames, like his workshop, is unassuming.
His curious blue eyes peer out behind a pair of sleek, wire spectacles befitting a professor, or in this case, an engineer, as he fiddles with a metal rod the length of a ruler. Sensors attached to the rod monitor it and display a signal on a computer screen represented by a red dot in the center of the screen.
“I can give it the breathalyzer test,” Ames said in his soft-spoken tone before letting out a short puff of air near the metal rod. Suddenly, the dot on the screen shoots upward in a line.
The sensor, which can detect with fine accuracy the effect from the warmth of a person’s breath on metal, demonstrates the caliber of technology Blue Line makes. Each of the 100 to 200 sensors Blue Line Engineering produces every year is handmade.
“When it says it was Made in Colorado — it was made in Colorado,” Ames said. “Not just assembled in Colorado.”
When it comes to Blue Line’s product delivery, such care is taken that a sensor, small enough to fit inside a lunchbox, is packed into a single cargo crate and transported within a half-semitrailer. Only two crates are put into the trailer and are reinforced from within to protect the sensor during transport. The truck’s drivers cannot stop for breaks except to refuel the semi.
PUBLISHED AUG. 2023
Quirky hobby turned into booming ski furniture business
Adam Vernon, owner of Colorado Ski Furniture in Manitou Springs, accomplished what so many aspiring entrepreneurs dream of achieving.
He took a quirky hobby — in his case, repurposing used skis and snowboards into personalized furniture — and grew it into his full-time job, with approximately 30 employees and a customer base with the likes of the Tiger Woods Foundation, Pepsi and Facebook.
With a few pairs of unwanted skis, basic skills in woodworking and the desire for a big, cool, comfy seat, Vernon made his first Adirondack-style chair in 2007 inside the garage of his home in Manitou Springs.
“Growing up in the Midwest, everybody I knew just had those chairs,” Vernon said. “I’m a big dude, and I have about a dozen sports injuries I’m always nursing so I just want to be comfortable with a nice chair.”
Vernon started turning unwanted ski gear from garage sales, friends and
gear shops into usable, durable artsy furniture.
Since then, Vernon has scaled up his operation to include a retail lot (fencedin using old skis) on Manitou Avenue and a woodworking shop less than a mile down the road. There, the company’s craftsmen sand, stain and drill wood chairs.
Despite collecting and repurposing roughly 2,000 skis a year with the capacity to make eight chairs a day, Colorado Ski Furniture’s products are made by hand, a skill Vernon said took him and his team a long time to perfect
Tom Hirt, hat maker for the movies
Tom Hirt doubled for Western stars of the day. But more often, he fashioned their hats.
That devilish curl on the brim is unmistakable. The $895 black hat is “a must have for the true Doc Holliday aficionado,” has read the sale in recent years on valkilmer.com, where the actor includes a description of Hirt, “the official hat maker for the film ‘Tombstone.’”
No one does it like Hirt, the website says. Pure beaver hide. The crown formed over 100-year-old timber blocks. Flanged, sanded, pounced and finished all by hand.
For his tools, Hirt counts a sturdy string, a wooden cylinder and a brush. No technology.
It all happens through the front door of his home, in the small room where mud is tracked and dust gathers on the work bench and the lamp. Here there’s a framed movie poster for “Conagher,” in which Sam Elliott donned one of Hirt’s hats. Hirt said Elliott was the one who looped him into “Tombstone.”
Elsewhere in a manila folder, Hirt keeps old photos.
There he is in matching attire as Mark Harmon on the set of “Comes a Horseman.” Another time, for the TV show “Gunsmoke,” Hirt stood in for Buck Taylor.
And then there’s a letter from the White House.
“Please accept this belated note of thanks for the terrific Western hat,” Ronald Reagan wrote. “I am delighted with this handcrafted remembrance and I appreciate your special thoughtfulness.”
As for Hirt’s story, it begins in a classroom in the 1960s. “I was horribly, horribly shy,” he said. He could hardly manage a sentence. Speeches to fellow students were out of the question, his teacher knew. So she thought of a performance.
“You’re just playing a part, you’re not Tom, you’re a character,” he recalls her instruction. And that excited him, a boy enthralled by the adventures of John Wayne.
from finding the ideal paint to the right screws.
While Vernon doesn’t claim exclusivity in making the first or only Adirondack ski chairs, he does believe he is the only seller when it comes to custom painting them, a task his hired artists do from home.
“There’s a lot of little companies, one man shows, trying to make them out of their garage copying us.”
But Vernon appreciates the notoriety his brand has gained, a reason why the company also started hot branding the chairs’ wood with the Colorado Ski Furniture logo.
“We used to not really have that,” Rivera said. “So maybe now if you see the chairs anywhere it can hopefully have a little recognition.”
While Colorado Ski Furniture might be known for its ski chairs, the company builds much more than that from the smallest items such as ski bindings that become cup holders to chair lifts that become a porch swing.
PUBLISHED SEPT. 2023
So Hirt performed for his class. Nothing heroic, rather mundane actually, something about a restaurant owner. But it was liberating.
“It was the first time in my life I remember people laughing with me instead of feeling like they were laughing at me,” he says.
He resolved to one day attain cowboy glory. First, though, he would flip burgers at McDonald’s in Santa Barbara, Calif. There he also made some of the world’s first Egg McMuffins under the order of company tycoon Ray Kroc. “My claim to fame,” Hirt said.
PUBLISHED, JAN. 2020
COATI
co-owner Erica Rose. “Essentially, there’s just a lot of room to get creative and try things out.”
That was the vibe that struck Ephemera’s Ian Dedrickson, long before anyone was ready to move into their new, historic digs at the former Colorado Automatic Trolley Interchange (CO.A.T.I, get it?).
Officially known as the “Winfield Scott block,” the warehouses between East Cimarron Street and East Moreno Avenue were constructed in 1916 to house the city’s trolley fleet. By the mid-1930s, streetcars no longer clattered through downtown and the warehouses were repurposed for business and industrial uses. A number of different retail spaces operated in the block’s storefront units over the years, including a computer repair store, coffee shop, yoga studio and salon, but most of the available square footage was “underutilized” office space and storage before
Toasted Bunz inside COATI. Photos by Christian Murdock
Vintage & Vinyl store inside COATI.
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3 FOOD HALLS TO CHECK OUT:
Leeds West Groups and Niebur Development swooped in to resuscitate the heart of the New South End.
“I was walking through this building when it was still dirt floors with pits in the ground,” said Dedrickson, whose restaurant started out in 2018 with key partnerships and a series of pop-up dinners around Colorado Springs.
“We caught the attention of Atlas Restaurant Group, and they gave us an opportunity to be part of COATI, so we could be doing something a little different than throwing dinners at our friends’ houses,” said Dedrickson. “I guess you could call us some of the ride-or-dies.”
The fleetingness implied by Ephemera’s name refers, not to its address inside the great food hall but to its ever-changing menu, edgy fare made with seasonal ingredients. The restaurant’s “punk rock upscale” dining recently doubled its space on COATI’s second floor, and Dedrickson said it’s where they plan to stay.
“We’re not part of the incubation program,” he said, as he shucked oysters to be served alongside a smoked cauliflower chilled bisque, with some pumpernickel rum and kale chips, “a
little juxtaposition,” for sampling.
On this Saturday in early September, the food hall was celebrating its fourth anniversary with an open house and ticketed “Taste of COATI” event aimed at giving fans a fresh reason to visit, and newbies a kaleidoscope window into what can be found beyond this familiar facade on any given day. The current cast includes the recently opened Outlaws Rooftop Bar, and a trio of new concept restaurant pods from Velez: Green Freak healthy, high-protein fare, Toasted Bunz sandwiches, and Arepapi, which serves Latin-style street food.
“COATI is very unsuspecting from the outside, and I think that was very exciting when we first opened, just that ‘wow factor’ that a lot of people have coming inside, even people who’ve lived in the Springs a long time,” Dedrickson said. “One of the big comments we were getting was, ‘I feel like we’re in a different city.’”
A gently backhanded compliment, maybe, but he’ll take it.
“In a way that’s the goal, yeah, we want you to feel like you’re in a different city,” Dedrickson said. “But we also want you to feel like this is Colorado Springs growing into its newer, better self, and coming into its own.”
11th Street Station, 1101 Main Ave., Durango
This culinary collective is more open-air “food haul” than food hall, boasting a smorgasbord of food trailers parked around a historic, converted gas station — serving coffee and adult drinks — in downtown Durango.
The Source, 3330 Brighton Blvd., Denver
Located inside a re-envisioned 19th century iron foundry, The Source offers a boutique hotel, artisan and “creative hub” with two massive market halls (whose dining options include James Beard Award-nominees), and a rooftop brewery and restaurant, in the heart of Denver’s vibrant River North Art District.
The Golden Mill, 1012 Ford St., Golden
Live music, community events and pop-up markets are part of this indoor/outdoor gathering spot, which features five culinary concepts and two walls of self-pour taps with more than 50 beers, wine, cider and house-made cocktails.
RJ Berry of 4NYE talks to customers about his thrift clothing.
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