Boulder Food Lab is expanding into Denver! The new Platte Park location is located at 1230 S Pearl Street, and will host public cooking classes, team-building events, kids camps, and private gatherings, among other uplifting events and activations. We connected with Casey Easton, the Founder and CEO of Food Lab Boulder (and now Food Lab Denver!), to discuss the expansion and what to expect in their exciting new space.
Could you just tell me a little bit of background about yourself, your business, and the inspiration for how it came to be?
“I’ve always loved the connection that food gives—it brings everybody together. I used to be a personal chef. When I would go out and I’d be cooking at dinner parties, I’d notice that everybody would come into the kitchen and ask me questions, wanting to learn how to cook. There was something to it, all these people just wanting to learn.
So, I went around to a bunch of different cooking schools across the country, because there wasn’t anything like that here, and I formed this idea for a ‘food lab.’ It took about five years, and it was a process—business plans on business plans. But eventually, in December 2015, I opened the Boulder location.
What inspired you to want to expand into Denver?
I always kind of ran the business like we were eventually going to expand. That’s always been a dream—to have multiple locations. I was actually poised to do it, right before COVID, and obviously, that put a lot of wrenches in everything. But a couple of years ago, I thought, again, “it’s time.”
I looked around a lot before I found the right place—but when I found it, that was it. Since then, I’ve been learning lesson after lesson, after lesson. I think I thrive in that sort of “learning” space. I like learning new things and seeing how this will all work—opening a second location and experimenting—that is what gets me super excited.
Do you think the Denver location will be generally the same as Boulder in terms of the classes you plan to offer and the community elements associated with them?
We’re starting it off exactly the same—the two spaces even look the same, with the same coloring, decor and design. But we’ll have to see if the Denver community wants and enjoys different types of classes.
Say, maybe the Denver crowd will like to do mixology classes, or other things we might not do as much out here, because it might not sell as well in Boulder. We’re interested to see what the difference is between Boulder and Denver’s market and students.
I would love to hear more about your classes. Can you tell us about the ones you currently offer, and maybe the ones you might be planning to offer in Denver in the future?
For corporate team building, one of our most popular classes is the “Paella Moroccan Night.” Or, we do one activation called “Flat Iron Chef,”—a competition where we give the competitors secret ingredients and the teams have to all compete against each other.
We’ll bring in wine makers and do wine dinners, which is still a class, but we’ll have the wine makers or distributors come in and pair each dish that people cook with a wine, and they’ll talk about why they go well together.
It’s all about community involvement. And we’re already working on some stuff for Denver. We have a whiskey place right down the street from our new space, so we want to do something like a “steak and whiskey night,” where people can learn how to cook and enjoy pairing those two things together.
Is there anything else you want people to know about the opening in Denver?
Our first public class is taking place on November 1, and is already open for sign-ups. We’re already booking up for December, with a variety of team-building events.
We’ve got a huge kids program in Boulder, and in Denver, we’re hoping that we get the same interest from kids in that area. We host kids’ camps. We do “Denver day off school,” which is when the Denver School District has a day off, we host workshops. We also do birthday parties.
It’d be interesting to try a happy hour cocktail-making class from five to six, you know, before our big class. It’s fun to dream up stuff like that—and our partners will be down there, because there are a lot of cute little small businesses that we are trying to align with.
I’m in a little bit of a surreal state right now. When you’re opening something, you build—and you hope “they will come.” – Casey Easton
Visit the Boulder Food Hall website.
Mediterranean Cast Iron Chicken
“The Mediterranean Chicken recipe is a fantastic one-pan meal, perfect for those transitional days into fall when the evenings draw in but you still need to maximize your time. Many of the ingredients are pantry or fridge staples, and you can easily incorporate any vegetables you have on hand. It’s truly a midweek stunner or an impressive dinner party meal that allows you to focus on other tasks.”
This is a “one-skillet meal”. Minimal mess, amazing taste, and great to serve solo or on pasta, rice or potatoes.
Ingredients
- 2 chicken breasts
- 3 sprigs oregano
- ½ head cauliflower, broken up into florets
- ½ cup kalamata olives
- 1 cup cherry tomatoes
- 1 red bell pepper, sliced
- 1 red onion, sliced thick
- 5 cloves garlic, smashed
- 1 lemon, sliced
- Olive Oil
- 1 TBSP balsamic
- 1 TBSP honey
- Handful basil leaves
- 1/2 cup feta
Directions
1. Heat cast iron to medium high, and add olive oil to cover the bottom of the pan. Salt the chicken and place in cast iron.
2. Add onion, garlic, cauliflower, cherry tomatoes, and olives. Cover and cook for 7 minutes, turn chicken, cover and cook for 7 more minutes.
3. Uncover and add honey, balsamic, feta and basil. Serve hot.
