New Arvada food hall Freedom Street Social features concepts from Tajahi Cooke, Paul Qui

Denver chef Tajahi Cooke has built a reputation as the two an activist and cook dinner throughout the pandemic, and now he’s assisting to start off up an Arvada food corridor with a distinctive mission at the rear of it.

Independence Road Social opens to the public on Wednesday, July 13. It delivers 10 foodstuff and consume principles to Candelas Parkway in Arvada, exactly where Cooke and the foodstuff hall’s co-proprietor, Nick Costanzo, hope to set an case in point in the neighborhood.

“Our target is to use this as a cafe incubator, to choose brands and examination them in new markets,” Costanzo instructed The Denver Post. “Our goal with each and every (chef) in listed here is to give them a system to truly increase in a ton of various avenues.”

Costanzo and his wife, Amie, who are longtime Arvada inhabitants and business homeowners, crafted out the 12,000-square-foot corridor jointly with enterprise associates Cameron Cummins, Jeff Kaplan and Jon Morgan. They joined forces with Cooke and his wife, Danielle, to develop a principal foodstuff corridor principle named the Chef’s Kitchen in which Cooke mentors up-and-coming or out-of-work cooks, giving a thirty day period-long residency method.

Jointly with the cooks, Cooke places on a few of supper clubs each month, offering multicourse foods to supper guests. Meanwhile, the viewing cooks put alongside one another their have menus for day-to-day counter company.

Initial up this month is Tracy Rogers, at first from Charlotte, N.C., who owns A different Round Disc Golfing and Tap Room. Rogers will deliver his “new-age Southern” cooking to Liberty Avenue. As Cooke states, “Tracy’s crab roll is one particular of the greatest damn crab rolls I have at any time tasted.”

In addition to Cooke’s and Rogers’ food, diners will come across about 10 more options for dining and ingesting at the hall, which include the new Sushi Kuro, operated by longtime Denver sushi chef Taylor West Osito from Blake Edmunds, the chef behind Mister Oso in RiNo and Pressed Coffee and Vinyl, run by corridor co-owner Amie Costanzo.

Prior to opening their food stuff hall, the Costanzos opened and operated Marco’s Pizza areas (not to be baffled with Marco’s Coal Fired) in Colorado. Now they’re doing work with partners in other out-of-point out dining places — Harmony Pan-Asian Grille, Jeremiah’s Italian Ice and Giordano’s Pizza — to open and test those ideas at Flexibility Avenue Social.

Lastly, the team will provide Bubble Tea (operate by Balance Pan-Asian), Cooke’s individual BKFST Club, plus FAM Hospitality’s Johnny Superior Burger and Lea Jane’s Sizzling Rooster (which also operates at Denver’s Zeppelin Station). FAM is a new hospitality group that longtime Texas chef Paul Qui formed with small business companion Johnny Hoang, who Cooke fulfilled although performing at the food items hall Tributary in Golden.

Ahead of forming their hospitality team, Hoang experienced debuted a several Denver food items stalls — together with Qui’s Thai Kun — without having Qui’s title connected to them. The former “Top Chef” winner did not open up his very own ideas in Colorado at very first, following experiencing a powerful initial backlash of community opinion  next his arrest in Texas in 2016 on suspicion of assaulting his then-girlfriend and protecting against her and her young son from fleeing. The costs were dropped in 2018 immediately after the alleged victim declined to take part in the trial.

Because Qui’s initial struggles in just the Colorado restaurant scene, he’s been through rehab and therapy, and along the way, nearby food stuff hall operators have started off to welcome his principles, from Tributary Food stuff Corridor & Industry to Zeppelin Station and now Flexibility Street Social.

“That was incredibly believed as a result of as nicely,” Nick Costanzo explained, when requested about inviting Qui to participate in the new Arvada foodstuff corridor. “We requested the concern ourselves … and believe he’s completed the ideal points (because the domestic-violence arrest) and deserves a comeback.

“I consider (Qui’s) foodstuff speaks for him,” Costanzo included.