Star Bar-B-Q closed doors as owners retired

The restaurant business is doing well in Colorado. In the third quarter of 2005, restaurant industry sales increased 4.9 percent (to about $1.74 billion) over third quarter 2004. Douglas County was the star, with a 7.5 percent increase. Larimer County came in with 5 percent growth over last year; Weld’s growth was more modest at 1.7 percent. Statewide, third quarter 2005 was the best in three years.

On a graph, an upward-trending line always looks nice, but it sometimes disguises the fact that the line picks up and drops off restaurants as it dips or climbs. New establishments open their doors, and old favorites put up “business for sale” signs. One of those was Star Bar-B-Q on North College Avenue, the source of the best Texas-style barbecue in Northern Colorado (with a consistently “excellent” rating from the health department), which closed as of Dec. 24, 2005.

“Nothing bad happened,´ said Diane Watkins, who owned the restaurant with her husband, Bill Moore. “We were profitable to the end, but after 30 years in the restaurant business, Bill wanted to retire and write a cookbook. And so we made a business decision to close.”

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Timing of the closure was driven by a number of elements, including the end of their lease (raising the question, “Do we want to renew and do this for five years more?”) and the beginning of a new tax season.

“Doing business in Fort Collins is always a challenge,” Watkins said. “If you are open for a day in the new year, you are liable for the taxes for an entire year. People may not know this, but every year you have to pay the city a personal property use tax on property that you own. We owned everything in the restaurant, and every year we paid a tax on it.”

While the restaurant itself is closed, Watkins and Moore still hold all their licenses and rights to the name and products like the dry rub.

“The possibility for franchising Star Bar-B-Q is still open,” Watkins said. “And the dry rub, which is made locally by Custom Blending, is available. Until we can get it into stores, just call the number on the marquee.”

Cheeses, please

As reported in the March 3 Business Report, four-year-old MouCo Cheese Co. is healthy and growing: up 52 percent in 2005 from 2004.  Unlike the abruptly departed Bingham Hill Cheese Co., which created new cheeses of all kinds at a dizzying rate, MouCo has focused on just two soft cheeses: the MouCo Camembert and the MouCo ColoRouge (the American Cheese Society’s 2004 winner of Best Washed-Rind Cheese).

MouCo is the creation of the husband and wife team, Robert Poland and Birgit Halbreiter. They start with milk from local Jersey and Holstein cows and make the cheese by hand. One nice feature of the packaging is that each cheese is marked with a date code and how it is likely to age. Lovers of a firm Camembert run no risk of cutting into a divinely ripe and fragrant cheese.

So Northern Colorado is safe in the soft-cheese category. But what of a local blue for local restaurants?

No fear. Brad La Rocco, the award-winning cheese maker formerly of Bingham Hill, is creating artisan cheese – some of it blue – at Morning Fresh Milk Dairy Farm. Making cheese is a new enterprise for the venerable dairy, in business since 1894.

“We had once thought about doing cottage cheese, but the timing wasn’t right,´ said Lori Graves. “Then Brad came to us last November. He loves to make cheese.”

The plan is to start with just a few cow’s milk products, get those established and then see what makes sense to do next.

“Our Morning Fresh Blue is now available in stores in a 4-inch-by-4-inch cube,´ said Matt Lucas, general manager for Morning Fresh. “It’s also being featured at Jay’s, Chimney Park Bistro, the Fort Collins Country Club and the Ptarmigan Country Club.”

Given the rising price of milk, which contributed to the demise of Bingham Hill, pairing an artisan cheese making operation with a dairy offers a distinct economic advantage. It also offers a marketing advantage.

“Because our cheese is made from milk from cows located on the farm where the cheese is made, Morning Fresh can be a certified farmstead cheese maker,” Lucas said.

Currently available are Colorado Gold Farmstead Cheese Curds (in cheddar or spicy flavors) and Morning Fresh Blue Cheese. Coming soon are Colorado Gold Farmstead Cheddar, Farmstead Harvest Moon (washed-rind Muenster) and Rocky Mountain Camembert Cheese.

As for goat and sheep cheeses, stay tuned. La Rocco loves to make cheese, and if the first products do as well as Lucas expects, in a year or so Morning Fresh might add some other cheeses to its line.