So. Fort Collins' food options grow in past year

In one southeast Fort Collins neighborhood, you will find the local pub sandwiched between a nail salon and a dentist's office.

"Oh my God, I'm going to try to put a whiskey bar next to King Soopers," Ryan Wallace remembers thinking when he signed a lease at 2608 S. Timberline Road to open William Oliver's Publick House.

Business at Wallace's "neighborhood pub" next to the King Soopers is booming a year and a half later. This summer, he took over the pet supply store next door, built a kitchen for his existing bar and added Sunday brunch to the growing food menu.

Over the past year, Wallace has been joined by around a dozen Fort Collins business owners who see opportunity for downtown style on the south end of town. Half of the restaurants, bars and craft breweries that have opened this year in Fort Collins have opened in Midtown and south Fort Collins, and almost all of those are locally owned businesses.

"I'm really excited about this area," Wallace said. "It has potential to be the next hub for local."

"The neighborhood around here is dying for more food," he added.

Midtown and south Fort Collins consumers will spend more than $155 million dining out and $8 million drinking out in 2014, while Old Town residents will spend around $18 million and $7 million on the same, according to data from the Nielsen Company. By 2019, Nielsen estimates those numbers for south Fort Collins to grow by more than $10 million in the food sector and $500,000 in drinks.

In Old Town, the spending will shrink by 2019, Nielsen estimates.

One major intersection away from William Oliver's, at the Drake and Lemay Scotch Pines Shopping Center, a Fort Collins couple is still reeling from the initial interest in their breakfast and lunch spot, which opened in June.

"When we looked at the radius of other breakfast places, we thought that there was a need here. And there is," said Dave Daggett, owner of Rise! A Breakfast Place. "We thought it was an excellent location, and we thought there was a need, but we were surprised by the neighborhood support," he added.

Full-service breakfast and brunch restaurants are one of the fastest growing markets in south Fort Collins, along with non-fast-food lunch and dinner spots, according to Nielsen.

Aside from demographics, Daggett said one of the reasons he chose south Fort Collins was for its ample parking lots, which he thought a breakfast restaurant needed.

Over the summer, though, he saw many customers walk or ride their bikes from nearby homes rather than driving. Wallace said the majority of his customers live in the same neighborhood as the Publick House and walk there.

"For us, neighborhood is everything," he said. "Most of our customers are within walking distance."

But for many, the perception of south Fort Collins as a pedestrian neighborhood remains to be seen and felt.

Fort Collins developer Les Kaplan doesn't see a lot of opportunity for local food and drink establishments south of Prospect Road, or even south of Mulberry Street.

"Even when you go south of Mulberry, you really lose that pedestrian environment," Kaplan said. "You're more likely to get people to go to a local restaurant if it's in a pedestrian environment, where people are on their feet, where they can see the menu. Where they can open up the door and peek in."

Along with other properties in Old Town, south and north Fort Collins, Kaplan owns a small shopping center along the South College Avenue corridor at Stuart Street. It houses The Laboratory, a locally owned gourmet grilled cheese restaurant and cocktail bar that opened in May.

Kaplan said he had two other Fort Collins-based owners interested in that restaurant space but that usually "the local people, they can't afford it."

"The economics for local restaurants are much more complicated than for franchises," he explained. "You get buying power with a franchise, marketing with a franchise, brand identification, you get a lot of things that you don't get for the one and only (local restaurant).

"Not to say that a local restaurant is any less of an experience," he clarified. "In many cases, it's better. But it is harder to establish themselves economically, because they don't have the franchise or national support."

In the case of new restaurants, "support" comes down to dollars.

Developers and Realtors will attest that the highest rents for restaurants are in south Fort Collins. Along Harmony Road and in new developments along College Avenue, such as the Foothills Mall, rent can reach more than $30 per square foot. While downtown and in older buildings, Kaplan said, rent can still be as low as $18 per square foot.

Still, Kaplan found a financially stable and local tenant for his shopping center.

In Scotch Pines, larger chains such as Sprouts and Starbucks are balanced by Rise! and soon-to-open The Fox and the Crow cheese shop. And William Oliver's Denver-based landlord recently turned down a national chain restaurant interested in a prime spot at the Drake and Timberline plaza.

Daggett says he would love to see a family-friendly local dinner restaurant move into the area, while Wallace thinks the south can support more brunch places.

For Wallace, it all starts simple enough: "I can't guarantee success. But I can promise that I'll pay my rent every month."