Chef Amy adds spice to popular Pepper Pod

HUDSON – Chef Amy Regalado was raised in the family restaurant business: literally.

“My crib was here in the office,” she said.

“Here” is the Pepper Pod Restaurant, an 86-year Hudson institution. The eatery has been at the same location – now just off Interstate 76 – for over 50 years, and Regalado’s parents, Beth and Dave Martin, have owned it since 1977.

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She explained that her parents never had aspirations to go into the restaurant business.

“My father was a farm boy from North Dakota. Mother came down here to go to CU,” she said. “When they moved to Hudson, the restaurant had kind of slipped and a local investor was interested in bringing it back. Basically he said to my father, ‘I think you’re a nice kid, and I think you can make this restaurant good again.'”

Judging by its longevity and loyal clientele, it is clear that the investor backed the right horse. The Pepper Pod regularly sweeps Channel 7’s “Comfort Food” category (check out the comments at http://kmgh.cityvoter.com), and the couple who own Cabela’s Sporting Goods regularly fly in from Nebraska for a meal.

And since 2005, it has a little something extra going for it: 25-year-old Chef Amy, educated at the prestigious Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y.

“I was not expected to come back to Hudson,” Regalado said. “My parents thought they would be holding me back. But I thought, why put all my effort into helping someone else’s dreams come true when I make my own come true here?”

Regalado concedes that there is not much demand for some of the dishes she learned to prepare in culinary school. But when she does have her way with the kitchen, she likes to prepare paella or pasta dishes that are her specialties.

On a daily basis, customers can order any of the steaks on the menu “Amy Style.” She can start her soups from scratch because when Dave Martin breaks down the meat for steaks – he does the big cutting on the kitchen’s band saw – she gets the bones to make her stock.

“We smoke everything in house, we make sausages in house, we cut all the beef in house,” she said. “We also support local farmers and ranchers. A lot of people in the food business are interested in keeping the farming community alive. Our bison is local and so is 50 percent of our beef.”

And for those bereft by the closing of Bruce’s Bar in Severance, the Rocky Mountain Oysters at the Pepper Pod are local, too, and come with a hilarious poem by former-large-animal-veterinarian-turned-cowboy-poet Baxter Black.

While the Pepper Pod draws lots of customers from Denver and Golden, only a few seem to drift down from Northern Colorado.

“We’re just 30 minutes from Greeley and maybe 45 from Fort Collins,” she said.

Take a look at the menu posted at www.thepepperpod.com, then drive – or fly – on down.

Elliot’s not a mess

Jake Fitzsimmons wanted to create a brand. The 1998 graduate of Colorado State University had enjoyed considerable success negotiating ad deals for corporate radio in both Denver and Los Angeles. He then formed a small marketing firm in Denver to deal with small businesses.

In 2005 he, like Amy Regalado in Hudson, concluded that the time had come to make his own dreams come true, and began planning Elliot’s Mess sandwich shop.

“The hottest thing in the restaurant business is quick casual,” he said. “Fort Collins is a great market for the concept. I hired Tiffany Pellin, a food service veteran, to help shape the company. Then we opened the first location at Stuart and Shields (streets).”

Pellin noted that while Fitzsimmons had set his sights on an Old Town location, testing the retro Chicago-mob theme first made good sense.

“Downtown is so risky,” Pellin said. “The remodel to turn a furniture shop into a restaurant was a half-million dollar project. The city helped out with the patio. Now we are working on where we fit in the market. We have a lot of business people as regular customers.”

Fitzsimmons acknowledged that he underestimated the interest in the business community.

“At the Stuart location, most of our business was college students. Here our most loyal customers are our business customers,” he said. “They are willing to pay a little more for quality. We made a commitment to serve meat that is preservative- and hormone-free, and that costs us more.”

Fitzsimmons noted that the retail landscape in Old Town is very different from what it was when he graduated. In his view, the quality of the merchants has gone way up.

“At one time, people were loyal because a place was local,” he said. “Now the bar has gone up, and just being local isn’t enough. We’re local, but we think our restaurant could succeed anywhere.”

Lulu open for business

As of Dec. 22, Lulu Asian Bistro is finally serving at 117 S. College Ave. in Fort Collins, with a vast menu that defines Asian fusion.

“This is not traditional Chinese food,” chef/owner Tian Lu said. “It takes all Asian traditions and blends them into a distinct style.”

As a result, the list of signature items includes Saigon Beef, Fu-chee Braised Boneless Duck, Yakitashi Chilean Seabass and Bang Kok Shrimp. It is not as if any of these dishes would appear on menus in Vietnam, China, Japan or Thailand. Instead they represent interpretations of regional styles. For those who prefer traditional sushi or sashimi, the sushi bar is also open for business, seven days a week.

Lu, who grew up in his family’s restaurant business in China and New York City, first came to Fort Collins to visit a friend.

“Our family has a restaurant in Denver, The Great Wall,” he said. “But when I saw Old Town in Fort Collins, I said, ‘This downtown is so nice; I want a restaurant here.'”

Considering the difficulties Lu faced in bringing an old building – the former China Palace location – up to code, it is a good thing he really liked Old Town and was determined to create a place that adds fusion to the menu mix.

“It took a lot of time and energy,” he said. “Now since we opened, we have been really busy.”

Busier, it seems, than Lu expected. But busy is a problem he is happy to deal with.

Jane Albritton is a contributing writer for the Northern Colorado Business Report. Her monthly column features restaurant and hospitality industry news. She can be contacted at jane@tigerworks.com.