By Ed Quillen
For fifteen years, we ran Colorado Central out of our house. While that’s convenient in many ways (i.e., short commute, and if you get a neat idea at 3 a.m. you can do something about it), there’s also a problem in that homes aren’t really set up for certain aspects of commerce.
So for those fifteen years, the First Street Café was where we generally met with writers, advertisers and whoever else might have had business with Colorado Central. The restaurant was more or less our front office.
Thus the news that the place is changing hands, and doubtless changing in many other ways, wasn’t exactly welcome. Not that I begrudge Wayne and Darleen Louch a future without the endless toil of running a restaurant; they’ve worked hard and served well, and I’ll miss them and the First Street.
Partly it’s on account of the connection with this magazine, but it’s almost like family, too. Our daughter Columbine worked there off and on for years. In fact, she even managed to get fired there before she worked there. When in high school, she went in at closing time to meet a friend who worked there, helped said friend finish bussing tables, the manager did not like how she was bussing, and she got fired from a job she never held.
With our kids grown and living far away, it’s where Martha and I often went for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners, and no matter when we went, we’d run into somebody we knew. In a way, it always felt like home.
The First Street maintained a hard-to-achieve balance between being a spot for locals and a stop for tourists. You don’t get through the winter without locals, but you need tourists to feel welcome if you’re going to make hay while the summer sun shines. And somehow they pulled it off – and did it year after year.
I’ll miss the quiche and especially the apple cake. I’ll have the memories of making magazine deals in one of the booths. And I’ll miss Wayne and Darleen, even though they have more than earned a long rest.
