HipPOPs gelato concept announced for Longmont food hall

LONGMONT —  HipPOPs, a purveyor of handcrafted gelato bars that began as a food truck in Florida, is the eighth and final vendor to fill the Parkway Food Hall, which will open Monday in south Longmont.

The food hall at 700 Ken Pratt Blvd, Suite 200, occupies a 16,000-square-foot space that housed Lucky’s and Alfalfa’s grocery stores. The announcement about HipPOPs rounds out the lineup of offerings that includes Japanese street food, a pizzeria, whole-hog barbecue and an Indian-Thai fusion concept as well as a bar with a full wine and beer list and cocktail program.

The food hall also has interactive and traditional arcade games, and plans to add two more retailers after it opens.

The food hall will open to the public at 11 a.m. Monday and be open every day except for a few major holidays such as Thanksgiving and Christmas. Its hours will be 11 a.m. until 10 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays, 11 a.m. until 11 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, and 11 a.m. until 9 p.m. on Sundays. Food stalls will be open until 9 p.m. Sundays through Thursdays and until 10 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.

Parkway will celebrate a grand opening over Memorial Day weekend with live music by Sarah Banker and PJ Moore from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday, May 26.

“We couldn’t be more excited to welcome folks into Parkway Food Hall,” Chris Nehls, vice president of Blackfox Parkway Associates, the company that has owned the building for more than 30 years, said in a prepared statement. “Every detail was chosen to make a space that is inclusive and fun for the entire community. From dawn to dusk, this is the place for a morning meeting, a business lunch, a happy hour exploring the cocktail program with friends, a date night for parents, weeknight dinners for families, and a weekend spot to watch the game.”

HipPOPs was founded in 2012 in south Florida by Anthony “Tony” Fellows, who had more than 30 years of experience managing, owning and operating frozen-dessert businesses. He developed a way to place handcrafted gelato on a stick and sell it at mobile sites. In Miami Beach in 2017, Fellows met three men who operated businesses in Denver. By 2020, they had rolled out a new POPtruck in Denver, built a creamery and added an executive chef. They now have an extensive schedule of food-truck appearances in the Denver area.

The other food vendors at Parkway Food Hall are:

Baa Hachi, a new Japanese street food concept from the husband-and-wife team who run the Farow restaurant in Niwot. The concept will be led by chef Adam Chan, who grew up in Hong Kong and has worked at Michelin-starred restaurants including Tate Dining Room in Hong Kong and Ever Restaurant in Chicago. Dishes will include tonkatsu ramen, okonomyaki, pork-belly bao buns and a miso-glazed salmon bowl. 

• Farow will also move its pop-up Pie Dog into Parkway. Pie Dog opened at Farow in January 2023 and is known for thin-crust Neapolitan-style pizzas with locally sourced organic flour.
• H3sh3r has run a whole-hog mobile barbecue catering service and food truck in the Denver area, and the Parkway stall will be its first brick-and-mortar location, offering smoked meats, barbecue sandwiches and sides such as white cheddar mac-and-cheese. 
• Spice Fusion, under Chef Ram Kumar Shrestha, will offer a blend of Indian and Thai cuisine from the owners of Boulder’s Gurkhas on the Hill.
• Cleaver & Co. will open its third location following its success in South Denver’s Junction Food & Drink Food Hall and Cherry Creek Food Hall, formerly the Grange Food Hall. It sells grilled burgers and chicken sandwiches, fries and shakes.
• Shawarma Shack, which has operated at Junction Food & Drink at Colorado Center, 2000 S. Colorado Blvd. in Denver, will open its second location at Parkway Food Hall. The Mediterranean concept will offer traditional shawarma wraps, salads and bowls with a variety of meats, accompanied by pickled vegetables and creamy tahini sauce. The menu also includes hummus, falafel and tabbouleh.
• Mexican food seller Chile con Quesadilla was the first concept to sign on at Parkway.

Rob Sloma, who has served as bar manager for both the Avanti and Rosetta food halls in Boulder, will manage the bar at Parkway Food Hall.

The food hall is opening in Longmont’s Parkway Promenade, which dates back more than 40 years and had been home to familiar businesses such as an Armadillo Mexican restaurant in the 1980s. It will have an indoor/outdoor bar, indoor/outdoor seating, a patio and event space for up to 40.

Parkway is hiring bartenders, bussers, dishwashers, barbacks, servers, and other positions via its website. 

Once a month from June 8 through October, Rocky Mountain Goat Yoga will offer classes at the food hall, coupled with $5 mimosas. Classes must be reserved in advance through Rocky Mountain Goat Yoga and are $25 per person plus a $5 mat rental. Participants will have a choice of 9 a.m., 11 a.m. or 1 p.m. class times.

Longmont-based Wibby Brewing Co. has created a New Zealand-style pilsner for exclusive sale at the food hall, which worked with Wibby to choose the hops and style. It will be released soon after the food hall opens.

The food hall’s principal architect, Meridian 105, also designed Avanti Food & Beverage, a food hall that opened in 2019 on Boulder’s Pearl Street Mall in a space formerly occupied by a Cheesecake Factory restaurant, as well as Edgewater Public Market.

Frisco, Texas-based National Food Hall Solutions, the operating partner, opened Denver’s Junction Food & Drink in 2020, which went on to win the NAIOP’s 2020 Retail Development of the Year Award and houses the first Shawarma Shack. National created the food hall space, equipped each food stall, then found the vendors. The company charges restaurateurs a license fee that’s negotiable, along with two- to three-year terms.Faurot Construction led the construction team for the food hall, in a building owned by Longmont-based Blackfox Parkway Associates.

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