Restaurant renaissance

By Rory Harbert

Established in 1881, Pueblo’s steel mill and its workers were central to the effort towards the expansion of the U.S. rail system. In the following century, Colorado Fuel & Iron Company workers, making up one-tenth of the Colorado workforce by 1910, provided their time and labor to build up the American West over the next century.

Nathan Stern, the director of development, and his realty team named their company Fuel & Iron. The name honors the commitment that Pueblo’s workforce made towards Colorado and doubles down on it by giving back.

“Fuel & Iron really has two overarching goals,” Stern said. “The first of which is for students, young people who are growing up in Southern Colorado who want to be involved in the food and beverage industry, that they have the tools and the vision for how to build a rewarding career within the industry without leaving the region. And the second is that Pueblo becomes known as the best place in Colorado to launch a food business.”

Stern is a self-professed Pueblo evangelist, spending his time spreading the gospel of Pueblo. His first job was working for a state employee union, the office residing within the same block as Fuel & Iron’s flagship project, the new Food Hall. From 2011-15, he drove a coffee truck around Denver for Solar Roast, a company that is as much of a morning staple as it is a Pueblo staple.

Fuel & Iron’s mission to support pueb- lo starts with the food industry: Fuel & Iron Food Hall. By providing an incubator site for new restaurants, Stern and his team are bringing the upfront cost of starting a new business down for local chefs and speedrunning Pueblo’s path to being a frontrunner of food statewide.

The Fuel & Iron Food Hall’s grand opening ceremony is at 11 a.m. April 28 at 400 S. Union Ave. This is the first of many projects Fuel & Iron Realty plan on unveiling to the Pueblo community.

Fuel & Iron: Food Hall, Fuel Kitchens, Fuel Farm

According to Stern, for each of these specialties there is an incubator site that is meant to allow “entrepreneurs to practice there” and “get their first brickand-mortar taste of business.” The Food Hall promotes restaurant ownership, the Fuel Kitchens promote food manufacturing and the Fuel Farm promotes agricultural practices.

The Food Hall is the first phase of the Fuel & Iron initiative that will be open. It is housed on the first floor of the historic Holmes Hardware Building at 400 S. Union Ave.

The Holmes building was built in 1911, burnt down and rebuilt in 1915. The building survived the 1921 flood six years later. The hardware company was purchased by Alva B. Adams, a threeterm Colorado governor during the turn of the 20th century, and his family, in 1948. The building has been empty for several decades - until now. Fuel & Iron

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