The Local newsletter is your free, daily guide to life in Colorado. For locals, by locals. Sign up today!
LoHi has been waiting for Northside Eatery & Market to open in the former Candela Latin Kitchen space for almost a year now, and the big day is almost here: On Friday, February 21, Northside will welcome its neighbors with a roster of grocery items; wholesome appetizers, sandwiches, salads, and the like; craft cocktails; and fresh juices.
The beverage program is the brainchild of partner and bar star Alexis Osborne (formerly at Smōk and Acorn), who joined Unique Eats, the restaurant group behind the market-restaurant-bar, late last year. She has created a lineup of drinks centered around freshly-pressed juices that spans from cocktails to nonalcoholic combos intended to energize. The boozy menu includes drinks like the Por Do Sol, a throwback recipe inspired by a cocktail Osborne created when she was behind the bar at Acorn, that includes cachaça, St. Germaine elderflower liqueur, Campari, turmeric, cinnamon, raspberry, and lime. Or, get ready to try the Jolly Green Gentian, made with gin, Suze (a gentian-based French apéritif), citrus detox tea, celery juice, and lemon.
As far as the n/a juice program goes, Osborne says this: “I’ve geeked out and gone a little crazy with the juices. I have 15 different juices planned, but we’ll start out serving four. We hope our neighbors will stop in before they walk over the pedestrian bridge to work downtown, grabbing a juice and a breakfast sandwich or hash and continuing on their way.” Northside will open every day at 7 a.m. to accommodate early risers and commuters.
If you aren’t in a rush, Northside, designed by Unum Collaborative, will be bright and airy, with about 60 seats inside for lingering over that juice (or morning cocktail); when warm weather returns, the 30-seat patio will offer a place to soak in a few rays.
The market is meant to provide a stop-gap shopping option for LoHi residents, offsetting trips to further-afield King Soopers or Whole Foods Market with fresh produce, meats, eggs, milk, pantry items (pasta sauces, jams, etc.), and loaves of bread from Golden’s Grateful Bread. “Northside will be the only market in Denver selling Grateful Bread’s loaves,” Osborne says. “And we’ll have lots of locally-made dry goods that you don’t see everywhere.”
Chef-owner Kevin Gerdeman’s food menu will focus on soups, salads (think: winter citrus with Fruition Farms feta), sandwiches (Nashville-style hot chicken on a brioche bun, a tofu banh mi), and shared plates (roasted cauliflower steak, sustainable ahi tuna tartare). “His food is super healthy, fresh, and local,” Osborne says. “There will be two seasonal entrées on the menu—one with meat and one vegetarian—that will change each month.”
Northside will be the second market-eatery-bar concept for LoHi, with Dimestore Delibar having opened a couple of blocks away on Boulder Street in late 2019. Osborne differentiates the two by explaining that Northside’s market is there for LoHi residents to pick up groceries and local products, whereas Dimestore sells prepared deli items, toiletries, and novelties.
Either way, it’s an exciting time for shopping and dining in LoHi.
Northside Eatery & Market will open on February 21; Monday–Thursday, 7 a.m.–8 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 7 a.m.–10 p.m. 1691 Central St., 303-993-5599
