Dana Rodriguez’s next restaurant will be within shouting distance of the farm the food comes from.
“I’m going to be cooking in the kitchen screaming at George upstairs in the greenhouse: ‘I need more lettuce!’” the chef said.
The executive chef at Casa Bonita and owner of Denver dining spots Carne is planning to open the second location of her RiNo restaurant Work & Class in George Gastis’ urban farm and eatery building at 900 E. Hampden Ave. in Englewood.
Work & Class will replace The Feedery, a breakfast and lunch spot open five days a week, and the adjacent market, where people could purchase coffee and wine while perusing the produce Gastis grows on-site. Both spaces combined are about 3,500 square feet. Existing employees will have the opportunity to work at the new venture.
The entire space, Grow & Gather, sits on a little more than a quarter acre and was formerly an auto shop before Gastis bought it in 2017 for $1.1 million. He’s invested millions into the property, adding a greenhouse on its roof and building out restaurant and retail space surrounded by sunflowers and shrubbery.
Since opening in mid-December 2019, Gastis has run The Feedery. But the Englewood resident acknowledged he has kept the doors open on days where “it didn’t make sense.”
“The restaurant business can be hard, and I recognized that it wasn’t my greatest strength,” Gastis said. “That’s when we started looking at finding a partner like this, about a year, year and a half ago, and kind of slowly, with conversations. When I met Dana, we stopped looking.”
John Livaditis and David Schneider of local shop Axio Commercial Real Estate brokered the deal between the urban farmer and well-known Denver chef.
“This was a real task in matchmaking that helped us demonstrate our skills because it wasn’t just about mass marketing, it was about finding the right fit for the situation,” Livaditis said.
The broker noted the influx of restaurateurs leaving Denver for the suburbs.
“When Dana was pretty close to finalizing the deal, George was very close with a lot of city officials in Englewood, and they all went and had lunch and it just sort of solidified the deal,” Livaditis said.
“I just don’t know that you’re gonna get that kind of message out of Denver.”
Rodriguez said the spot will be a “copy and paste” of Work & Class, which offers a New American menu with Latin influences, from plantain empanadas to pork loin and lamb available by the 1/4 pound.
Unlike the existing RiNo location, which opened in 2014, this one will serve breakfast and lunch.
On Gastis’ end, he will shift into full-time farmer mode. In addition to his rooftop greenhouse, the property has a separate hydroponic operation, a system that grows plants without using soil. He also has additional crops growing in his backyard a quarter mile down the road.
“My goal is that George doesn’t need to keep working to try to sell his product, because I take it all,” Rodriguez said.
Gastis hails from Cleveland, Ohio, and moved to Denver 30 years ago. He came to Englewood from Platt Park in 2015 after selling a web design firm, looking to start his second career with Grow & Gather.
“We align in so many ways, culturally a little bit, too. My background … is Greek, Dana’s is Mexican, but there’s a lot of overlap there. We share a lot of the same values with local food and community.”
This story was originally published by BusinessDen.
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