‘One hell of a pizza party’

LONGMONT — An old adage declares that there’s no such thing as bad pizza, a truism that could logically be expanded to include charity pizza festivals.

Despite “a few logistical hiccups” — long and confusing lines, sweltering heat, water and restroom access, for example — Nick Swanson, one of the lead organizers of September’s inaugural Colorado Pizza Festival in downtown Longmont, told BizWest that the event was a success and preliminary planning is already underway for a bigger and better pizza party next summer. 

“People in Colorado love pizza and they showed up,” Swanson, culinary director and co-founder Urban Field Pizza & Market, said, “which was amazing because the number one goal of this was to raise as much money as we can for the nonprofits we were supporting.”

The Colorado Pizza Festival was organized by Pizza With Purpose, a Longmont-based 501(c)(6) nonprofit group launched by leaders of Main Street pizza joints Urban Field, Rosalee’s Pizzeria and Antonio’s Real New York Pizza.

A year or so ago, the downtown restaurateurs began kicking around ideas for how to help vulnerable members of their community, Swanson said, and the idea they landed on, naturally, was “to throw one hell of a pizza party.”

Kimberlee McKee, executive director of the Longmont Downtown Development Authority, said that city leaders “have wanted to have a food festival in the community for a long time. They’re very popular around the state. So when three of our wonderful pizzerias got together and said they’d like to start a pizza festival and use it to support initiatives that work with food insecurity, we were thrilled to step in and help that become an ongoing event here at Longmont.”

After covering its operational costs, the festival donated 100% of its remaining proceeds — about $60,000 — to four hunger-relief organizations: Longmont Food Rescue, Community Food Share, Colorado Friendship and Slice Out Hunger.

“I think that’s a hell of an accomplishment,” Swanson said.

The festival sold 7,000 tickets to attendees who had the option of buying a $15 general admission ticket and paying for slices individually or a $50 ticket that allowed for unlimited samples from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. during the Saturday, Sept. 5 event.

“Logistically, we were prepared to process 7,000 people throughout the day. What we weren’t prepared for was for 4,000 people to be waiting at the gate at 1 p.m. when we first opened,” Swanson said. “That just simply kind of overwhelmed our systems at first. So the first couple hours — I’d say 1 p.m. to 3:30ish — were a little tough for people. When you’re waiting over an hour to get in in 95 degree heat, that’s tough.”

McKee said the festival brought an “unprecedented crowd” to downtown Longmont, “which was amazing, but everyone seemed to show up at the same time.”

Complaints on social media came fast and furious soon after gates opened. “Apparently their ticket sales were bigger than their stomachs,” one Redditor posted.

Swanson noted that “some of the biggest issues that we were running into were the wait times at security to get in. And then once you got through, there were long wait times at the pizza stands. We didn’t have great signage, so people didn’t know exactly where different pizzerias were located. They didn’t know where the water was, where the bathrooms and things like that were. So we think that a lot of the hiccups we had are easily solved for year two, which is nice.”

Swanson said organizers are considering implementing a timed-entry system for future festivals so that hungry attendees “aren’t waiting that hour in the heat just to get in and having to wait another 30 minutes at their first pizza stand.”

To reduce confusion and shorten wait times inside festival grounds, future events will feature “way better signage, so people know as soon as they get in where to go to get certain things — alcohol is over here, kids games are over there,” he added. “That’ll help mitigate some of the confusion that happened when people first walked in. The goal is to get people in as fast as possible and get a piece of pizza in their hand as quickly as we can.”

Despite the growing pains, “I don’t think we’ve had anyone yet come to us — whether it’s a pizzeria, a vendor, an artist, a brewery, distillery, winery — say they don’t want to be a part of it next year,” Swanson said. 

Part of the appeal for the 24 participating Colorado pizzerias was the opportunity to expose thousands of potential new customers to their food. 

“We had one pizzeria, Lina’s out of Granby, that came down for it. I give them so much credit because that’s a drive, right? And they were probably one of the busiest pizzerias there out of all the big names that attended,” said Swanson, who added that he’d like to have at least 30 pizzerias participate in next year’s festival. “That just goes to show you that people want to try something new. They came to this event hoping to try something that wasn’t right down their block or in their neighborhood.”

Looking ahead to future festivals, organizers could try to work with the city to push the festival back a few weeks into the fall, he said, but there’s never a guarantee of perfect weather. 

“That’s great if we get a beautiful October day that’s 70 degrees and sunny. But people who have lived in Colorado long enough know that it could snow on October 1. It could be 40 degrees outside, and then we have issues with ovens staying hot” enough to properly cook pizza outdoors.

Beyond the date, festival organizers will consider whether the first year’s location — a several block stretch around Fourth Street and Kimbark Avenue just east of Main Street — makes sense for future events. 

“The estimate now is that about 9,000 people showed up in all, between kids (children under 12 did not need a ticket), sponsors, vendors and all the (ticketed attendees) that were there,” Swanson said. “So if this is going to turn into something where we’re going to have 10,000, 15,000 people show up, we can’t have it on that footprint. It just won’t fit that number of people comfortably and make it an enjoyable experience.”

McKee agreed that “planning for a much larger crowd in the future is important.”

In the coming months, organizers will have conversations with Longmont officials about what spaces might be “available for next year,” Swanson said. “Because obviously we want to keep this in Longmont. The goal is to make this an annual Longmont event.”

In addition to all of the eating and drinking, this year’s festival featured a stage for live music and a 14-constant amateur pizza cookoff.

“That was just such a fun little event for people that don’t get to cook pizza on a big stage,” Swanson said of the contest, which was won by amateur pizzaiolo Rick Wildt. “So that’s something we’ve been talking about, maybe expanding a little bit more next year” to include more contestants and perhaps different competitions for several unique regional styles of pizza. 

“These amateur home cooks, with the technical technological advancements in home pizza ovens, are cranking out restaurant-style pies,” he said. “What they’re doing is fantastic.”

In the days just after the festival, organizers “had some initial debriefs about what was successful, what could we improve upon,” Swanson said. “We’re going to really start hitting the ground running again (on planning for next year’s festival) come the first of the year. There seems to be a general consensus that that’s a good time to start planning and going over timelines and venues and all that fun stuff.”

The turnout for the first Colorado Pizza Festival, organizers said, put an exclamation point on a conversation that Centennial State pizza lovers have been having for a few years now: Longmont is evolving into Colorado’s pizza capital.

“I feel like people have just known us as a cow town for so many years — we’ve always just lived in the shadows of Denver and Boulder and the bigger cities around us. But now Longmont just has such a unique, eclectic community of people and restaurants and artists and musicians, it’s turned into something pretty special that’s honestly infectious and you want to be a part of it,” Swanson said. 

“We just have such a good pizza scene now. And I’m going to steal a line from Anthony DeSousa, who is the owner of Antonio (and one of Pizza With Purpose’s founders). He always says, ‘It’s community, not competition.’ I couldn’t agree with him more. The way we’re able to come together as a community and support one another is amazing.”

Rosalee’s Pizzeria, founded a dozen years ago by James and Amy Ross, is often credited with sparking the Longmont pizza boom.

“Years ago when I first started (working for the Longmont DDA), James and Amy were looking to open a pizza shop, and they wanted it to be downtown,” McKee said. “And I believe their investment started it all. … It’s probably not rare to have multiple pizza places along one downtown street, but I do think it’s rare to have so many pizza places in such close proximity that are so well-renowned throughout Colorado.”

Downtown’s pizza scene is but one element of a broader reinvigoration of the neighborhood, she said. 

“We are really thrilled with the investment that people have wanted to make recently in downtown Longmont. We have a ton of new retail stores, new restaurants, coffee shops,” McKee said. “It’s really finding itself and growing into a wonderful, walkable shopping and dining area that really serves all of the Front Range. We like to say that downtown Longmont is the bridge between Northern Colorado and Metro Denver — it’s a great place for people to meet in the middle.”

And what better reason is there for folks to meet in the middle than to share a pie at one of Colorado’s best pizzerias?

Share on Facebook on LinkedIn