Jennifer
EMICH
The restaurant is packed. Glasses are clinking. Orders are flying. Someone needs a gluten-free substitution. Another table needs drinks. An employee has a question. The phone is ringing, the kitchen is moving at full speed and three people need something at exactly the same time. Welcome to Jennifer Emich’s happy place.
For more than two decades, Jennifer thrived in the controlled chaos of the restaurant business, where taking care of people meant listening closely, moving quickly and staying three steps ahead. Long before she navigated contracts and closings, she mastered a skill that would become invaluable in real estate: anticipating what people need before they even have to ask. “Hospitality really is my biggest secret sauce,” says Jennifer, a REALTOR® with Compass in Boulder. Sure, the menu may have changed, but Jennifer’s secret sauce hasn’t. Recently, Jennifer was meeting a client whose mother was coming to see her new home. It was raining, so Jennifer opened the garage ahead of her arrival. Her client was surprised. How did Jennifer even think of that? Apparently, hospitality doesn’t clock out when you leave the restaurant business. “People just want to feel cared for,” she says.
Three of a Kind Long before Boulder knew Jennifer as a REALTOR®, the
community knew her as one of “the triplets.” Originally from New Jersey, Jennifer grew up alongside her triplet sisters in a large Italian family. Her mother was one of 12 children, which meant family gatherings were not exactly intimate affairs. “There’s a birthday every week,” Jennifer jokes. Sundays meant big Italian dinners at Grandma’s
house. Summers meant the Jersey Shore. “We were always with family,” she says. With that many relatives, being alone may have required an appointment. Jennifer and her sisters remained nearly inseparable. All three attended college in Las Vegas, and when her sisters eventually discovered Boulder, they called Jennifer with a proposition: Come to Colorado. We’re opening a restaurant.
Jennifer had earned her degree in elementary education from UNLV and taught for about two years. She was 24. Why not? She packed her bags. That was 27 years ago. So much for the lesson plans.
Eat. Drink. Shine. The sisters opened a wine bar and music venue in downtown Boulder and spent approximately 11 years there before selling it. After a brief hiatus, the restaurant bug struck again, and they opened Shine. Jennifer never returned to the classroom, although with as many as 50 restaurant employees at a time, she jokes that the teaching degree didn’t go to waste. The restaurants became an extension of the values Jennifer grew up with: food, family, connection and community.
“The Italian part is more just the love of connection, the love of food, the love of community,” she says. The sisters even wrote a cookbook, Eat, Drink, Shine, which recently came out in a second edition. Among its recipes is one from Jennifer’s dad for a family staple: a pot of sauce. Not spaghetti sauce. A pot of sauce. And when the family gets together, it goes over rigatoni. “When you’re a big family, it’s hard to do spaghetti,” Jennifer explains. The tradition continues at Jennifer’s home. For the kids’ birthdays, everyone knows what is coming: a big dinner and a pot of sauce. Jennifer even bought a large dining table so everyone could fit around it. Some things don’t change.
A New Course Eventually, Jennifer was ready for something that did. After decades in restaurants, she turned toward a field that had surrounded her most of her life: real estate. Her mother had been in the industry since the 1980s. Her grandmother had been in real estate. So had her greatgrandmother. Even while running restaurants, Jennifer and her family bought homes and built properties from the ground up. “It’s in my blood,” she says. Jennifer earned her real estate license in 2021, making a major career change at 47. For years, Boulder had known Jennifer and her sisters as the “Shine girls.” Suddenly, Jennifer had to establish an identity of her own in a new profession. “The first two years for me were definitely building a foundation,” she says.
Slowly, that perception changed. Former restaurant customers became real estate clients. Jennifer even sold one of her sisters’ homes. Today, one family has entrusted her with five separate transactions involving the parents and daughter. “I feel so honored that they trust me so much,” she says.
Home Is Personal “Real estate is emotional,” says Jennifer. Some clients are celebrating. Others may be divorcing, relocating or rebuilding their lives. Jennifer listens first and figures out what each person needs. Fortunately, her restaurant years prepared her well. After years of late nights in restaurants, she happily describes herself as more of a homebody. Home is where she cooks, creates, relaxes and spends time with her husband, Eric Cohen, and their adorable 16-year-old cat, Willow. Eric and Jennifer have been married for about 16 years after dating for only seven months. Even better? He was Jennifer’s first (and last) blind date. Talk about beginner’s luck. “I hit that one out of the park,” she laughs. “He’s the yin to my yang. I’m so grateful that I found a partner who really gets me.” Today, the two enjoy traveling, golfing and cooking together.
Never Too Late These days, a good Boulder morning might start with a walk, a workout with girlfriends and the New York Times crossword and games before Jennifer heads out to meet clients or grab coffee. She intentionally leaves some breathing room in her schedule.
“The Italian part is more just the love of connection, the love of food, the love of community.” “I’ve really learned how to nourish myself,” she says. “When I feel nourished, I take care of my clients better.” Jennifer never expected to reinvent herself professionally at 47. The first years were scary. She was the new person in the room again after decades of knowing exactly what she was doing. “I just keep reinventing myself and changing and growing and learning,” she says. That is part of what she loves about real estate. Every client is different. Every deal is different. Every day requires something new. “It’s never too late,” Jennifer says. After all, her story has never really been about restaurants or real estate. It’s about opening the door, pulling up another chair to the big table and making people feel cared for when they get there. That has always been Jennifer’s secret sauce.
Jennifer Emich 303-819-7218 jennifer.emich@compass.com www.compass.com/agents/ jennifer-emich/
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