Breakfast Club readies Greeley debut in former El Charro location

GREELEY — Call it the rule of threes. Three of any item makes visual harmony and keeps the eyes engaged, according to design pros. In the case of The Breakfast Club, three locations in Northern Colorado may just bring a bit more symmetry to the breakfast world.

Dakota and Michelle Soifer purchased the Loveland Breakfast Club three years ago, and the Fort Collins Breakfast Club a year and a half ago. Today, they’re about 10 days way from opening their third breakfast location, in Greeley, where they hope to capitalize on their historical restaurants’ reputation for good food, good service and great staff.

The couple this spring purchased the former El Charro restaurant, which served up Mexican food to the masses for more than half a century at 2109 Ninth Street in Greeley. They hope to open July 1, if all goes as planned. They just had a hiring fair, and they are training their new staff in Loveland now. They also will move their Loveland manager, Christine Granados, as well as some longtime staff to the Greeley site.

“We’re thinking we have this great brand. We have well-established clients and a reputation and, we also kept hearing from people who dine with us from Greeley saying they would love it if we had a restaurant here. And it just, I think, kind of planted a seed,” Dakota Soifer said. “It was more of a gut instinct and talking with people and getting to know our regulars and customers and getting to know the area. It really seemed like Greeley could be a great fit for us, and we started looking around at properties.”

They purchased El Charro in May for $725,000, according to Weld County records. Now, having  loans through Key Bank, a bright new sign, a coat of paint, new furniture, charming decorations and the same zest for hardy breakfasts and good service will transform this once lunch-and-dinner haven of Greeley into the third Breakfast Club in Northern Colorado.

The Soifers owned and operated Café Aion, a Spanish- and Moroccan-inspired restaurant on The Hill in Boulder, for years before deciding to venture north. Dakota, originally from Maine, started the restaurant, serving as the head chef, a career choice that took root during his college years in Boulder.

After graduating with a degree in architecture from the University of Colorado, Soifer moved to California go turn his college day job into a career as a chef.

“After I graduated, I just kind of continued cooking,” he said. “I moved out to San Francisco and Napa to really get more experience at some higher-end, nicer places, and I kind of had in the back of my mind that I always wanted a place of my own.”

He returned to Colorado as an executive chef for The Kitchen. In 2010, he opened his first restaurant, Café Aion. In 2014, he appeared on and won the reality competition show, “Cutthroat Kitchen,” where he competed against three other chefs across the country to make the best dishes in a short amount of time. They still have Café Aion in Boulder.

Today, the Soifers also are focusing on the Breakfast Clubs brand on the west side of Interstate 25, which helped return the restaurants, split years ago in a divorce between owners, back into family ownership. Former owners David Hakes and Angela Hertrich built something special, for which Soifer said he is grateful.

“Dave and Angela had built really great businesses. And one of the biggest assets was the staff. We were lucky enough to take on and continue sort of the legacy of the Breakfast Club in Loveland and Fort Collins,” Soifer said. “You know, we think that with the input of the staff, we’ve kind of tweaked it and maybe even tuned it up a touch more.”

Looking toward Greeley, also isn’t testing the waters. They wanted to buy a building, rather than lease.

“We were lucky to get the building, and it was important to us to be able to not just lease, but to own the property and really make a commitment to the community, in that we’re putting down roots here,” Soifer said. “We’re here for the long term.”

The new Greeley building has good bones, more seating and great parking, Soifer said.

“We have more seats here, so I think we are really zeroing in on how can we keep the high quality, and keep that consistency for folks when they come here,” Soifer said. “We’re just really making sure we’re putting our best foot forward and keeping the quality that people know at The Breakfast Club.”

While his Greeley patrons are waiting patiently, the new white sign in place of where El Charro used to be is stopping potential customers.

“We’ve had people just about every day we’re here doing work and getting ready, a couple of people pull in and poke their heads in and ask, “When are you opening?” Soifer said.

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