Multicultural restaurant coming to Longmont’s Dickens Opera House

LONGMONT — A restaurant called Roots is coming to a building with roots.

Chef-owner Madhoo Seth is moving her eclectic, multicultural restaurant from 1200 Miramonte St. in Broomfield — where she said she had “zero foot traffic” — to the 152-year-old Dickens Opera House at Third Avenue and Main Street in downtown Longmont, and said she hopes to open there around May 1.

“I saw it and said, ‘Omigosh, the character!’ I fell in love with the historic building,” Seth said. “I was looking for a great location, but when I looked at it, I was absolutely in love with it. Every room has a story. It has roots, I have roots, and it matches my personality.”

The two-story brick building was built in 1881 by William Henry Dickens, reportedly a relative of author Charles Dickens, and expanded in 1905. Now listed on the National Register of Historic Places, it originally housed the Farmer’s National Bank on the first floor and an auditorium on the second floor. After sitting vacant from 1978 to 1986, the main floor has been home to a succession of restaurants.

An immigrant from New Delhi, India, Seth opened a catering company called The Gourmet Kitchen in 2002, offering “new American” and multicultural foods, then expanded it to the Copper Leaf Garden and Event Center in 2014. She opened Roots in July 2020 in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic “to give families and individuals a safe place to enjoy delicious, eclectic, sustainable food away from the hustle bustle of the city.”

According to Roots’ website, “in addition to bringing a community together with our diverse menu, we support nonprofits, strive to work with local purveyors, pay living wages and benefits to all our employees, and are madly in love with Environmental Sustainability. Hence the name Roots.”

Seth said she will still maintain a production kitchen at the Broomfield site, but that her focus now is to “bring a lot of diversity, a lot of colors and a lot of fun food to Longmont.”

As for the Dickens building, she added, “right now we’re leasing, but we want to buy it.”

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