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Nick Costanzo wants to bring downtown Denver’s food scene to the suburbs.

The former local franchisee of Marco’s Pizza is building a 12,000-square-foot food hall called Freedom Street Social near the intersection of Indiana Street and West 91st Avenue in Arvada’s Candelas community.

“We want to be the food hall in the suburbs for all the 45-year-olds with two kids that still want to go to Avanti but can’t drag the whole family down there,” Costanzo said.

“I’m literally building it for me and my wife,” he added. “We’re 47, we’ve got two kids and live right here, and it’s just a pain in the butt to try to go downtown anymore. So to be able to bring these concepts out here and make it kid-friendly, where you don’t mind if a 4-year old is throwing a fit, is a dream.”

Freedom Street Social, which he plans to open in March next year, will feature nine stalls, including:

• Osito, a paired down version of Juan Padro’s Mister Oso concept, which has a location in RiNo and a second coming to Wash Park. This smaller location will serve smoked meat tacos, frozen drinks and other snacks.
• Chicago restaurateur Jared Leonard’s The Budlong Hot Chicken, which serves Nashville hot chicken, and Hamburger Stan, which serves burgers, shakes and fries. They both have a location within Zeppelin Station.
• Chicago-based deep-dish pizza chain Giordano’s, which has two Denver locations and one in Loveland.
• Florida-based Jeremiah’s Italian Ice.
• Ohio-based Balance Pan-Asian Grille, which serves Asian tacos, build-a-bowls, bubble tea and snacks like creamy wontons, edamame and citrus brussels. This will be the first restaurant outside of Ohio and first franchise location.
• A new coffee concept called North End Coffee & Vinyl, which will be run by Costanzo’s wife Aimee, who has a large collection of vinyl records she plans to play throughout the day.
• Chef Tajahi Cookie will also be opening a breakfast concept, as well as a stall for The Supper Club, a chef residency program he started during the pandemic in French 75 downtown. Each month he will work with local chefs around Denver to host four to five-course dinners.

“We’re out in the middle of a food desert out here,” Costanzo said. “We’re so far northwest Arvada, and you’re going to Wadsworth, Golden and Boulder to get food.”

“Arvada wants this,” he added. “They want to start promoting it because, for them, it’s the biggest restaurant in Arvada, and the first food hall.”

Costanzo joined Marco’s, which started in his hometown of Toledo, Ohio, as a franchise owner in 2008.

Over the years, he opened 14 locations, including one in Westminster that was ranked No. 2 last year for highest sales out of all the Marco’s locations, and also served in a role assisting other Colorado franchisees.

But by this June, he felt he had “outgrown the business” and sold his stores.

While he was an owner, Costanzo worked with Cameron Cummins, who was Marco’s head of development and helped grow the company from 70 to a little more than 1,000 stores.

The two exited around the same time and teamed up to open Freedom Street Social, along with Jeff Kaplan, the Colorado franchise owner of Giordano’s, and Jon Morgan, co-founder of Chicago-based Interra Realty, who is spearheading the construction of the food hall.

After leaving Marco’s, Cummins started Pivotal Growth Partners, a holding company that helps small brands grow their franchise business.

Costanzo said the team plans to use Freedom Street Social as a way to test out some of the brands he’s working with for possible future expansion, such as Jeremiah’s Italian Ice.

“Our goal is to bring in a concept, test them out, see if they have legs to stand on and help them grow,” Costanzo said.

The team bought the 1.8-acre lot at 15177 Candelas Pkwy for $1.8 million last year and broke ground in January, Costanzo said. It’s currently in the core and shell phase, but he expects to have concepts in there ready to test out their operations by February.

The 12,000-square-foot building will include an 1,800-square-foot mezzanine and a 3,500-square-foot patio. Williams Construction is building the food hall, and Michigan-based Studio H2G is designing the space.

Costanzo named Freedom Street Social after the street his grandmother lived on in Toledo, Ohio, for almost 70 years. She passed away a couple of years ago at 97, but he’s paid homage to her throughout the restaurant.

There are personal details, such as inserting the same bathroom tiles and drapes that were found in her home, coasters with her handwriting on it, and including her address in the logo.

“My mom died of cancer when I was 4 years old, and my dad became a single dad, so my two grandmothers became my mom,” Costanzo said. “And within a year both of my grandfathers died, so it was just us. My dad’s mom, who is a 4’8’’ Italian woman, cooked every day, and we’d get dropped off in the morning or after school, and everything was centered around food.”

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Meow Wolf trades on the dark side of American popular culture, in cults and conspiracies, in supernatural beings, extraterrestrials and unsolvable conundrums. The chain of oversize immersive art installations teases visitors who wander through its dimly lit environments by dropping hints about nefarious mysteries they could spend a lifetime — not to mention multiple $45 admission charges — trying to work out.

That spooky stuff feels right at home in Meow Wolf’s first two locations, Santa Fe and Las Vegas, desert cities located in the paranormal heartland. If your goal is to create narratives about underground evildoers, each worthy of their own “X-Files” episode, it helps to set them in places where alien sightings are routine and where the government actually has established secret military test sites. Northern New Mexico and Southern Nevada were creepy long before Meow Wolf arrived.

It is a different story in central Colorado, where Meow Wolf opened its third location last week. Fans of the popular attraction will find its special effects familiar: cavernous rooms pumped up with pulsing lights and sound; post-apocalyptic dioramas; steampunk scenery meant to be touched, clicked, climbed over and gawked at. Anyone looking to get their mind blown and then blown again will deem Meow Wolf a thrilling fun house.

Still, I found its ominous themes an awkward fit in Denver, a good-mood city founded on American optimism and sustained by Western exuberance, thanks to abundant sunshine, decent traffic flow and the country’s third lowest property taxes. In a land of Rocky Mountain highs, Meow Wolf’s eerie aura feels a little out of this world. I was hoping for something more connected to place, less corporate.

That has not deterred crowds, who are thrilled just to get inside. Denverites waited five years as the company planned and constructed its latest location: a five-story installation built ground-up in the industrial Sun Valley neighborhood for more than $60 million. Fate positioned Meow Wolf to represent all the fun and freedom possible as the coronavirus pandemic ebbed and buyers snatched up 35,000 tickets in the first 24 hours of sales this month.

On Sept. 18, when I arrived for the opening weekend, lines were long and parking sparse, though there were few signs of frustration over the mandatory face coverings or the inevitable bumping into one another that comes with a maxed-out venue. Denver Meow Wolf, despite itself, is a happy place.

That is due, in part, to the staff members, who dress in hooded cloaks and glow-in-the dark fashion accessories and keep the mythology rolling — not an easy task when visitors walk through perplexing areas, like a hall of whispers with chattering walls, a psychic’s den offering live readings, and a laundromat where marbles spin inside dryer windows.

Visitors can sit behind the wheel of futuristic cars, flip through books in a pretend library, wander into a neon cathedral with a playable pipe organ or enter a beauty salon, pizzeria or grocery store, each with its own surreal twist.

Somehow these elements come together as Convergence Station, an interplanetary transit hub where different worlds connect but where “Earthers” remain outsiders. There are subnarratives that explain it all — if you can add up the clues. One story, for example, involves a bus driver named Pam, who once steered her vehicle into Convergence Station and vanished.

If I don’t have the story arc correct, it is not for a lack of trying. I explored secret corridors, read text, watched animations and asked the actors/workers for help. I paid $3 for a wallet-size Q Pass that activated digital screens dispensing clues. I spent close to three hours.

In the end, I spent another $9.50 in the gift shop for a slim paperback that got me nearer to understanding Eemia, Numina, Ossuary and the other peoples and places that make up this scenario. It is possible that I tried too hard; the real thrill of Meow Wolf comes not in wrapping your mind around its enigmas but in letting its 90,000 square feet of enigmas wrap themselves around you.

Immersive installations like Meow Wolf bill themselves as art, but they fit better into the category of entertainment venue, more like Disney World than MoMA. The company involved 110 Colorado artists in this project, giving each a bit of real estate to show their wares and paying them for their efforts. And I did recognize contributions from respected local names — a light sculpture by Collin Parson, a mural by Jaime Molina, an inflatable by Nicole Banowetz — but couldn’t find any signs on site crediting their efforts.

As a result, their pieces are swallowed up by the overall bigness of the theme park and, in effect, rebranded to fit the dark and spooky Meow Wolf mode. Work by those and other artists whose creations I’ve always found hopeful, vital and connected to community felt invisible here.

That anonymity is a choice on the part of Meow Wolf, which emphasizes collaboration and resists breaking the fourth wall, and maybe it’s the right one when it comes to giving customers what they truly want or need right now to escape a particularly stressful world. There are plenty of places to contemplate fine art in a city like Denver but few offering the retreat Meow Wolf provides, and maybe individual recognition is something artists and critics value more than the public does.

But letting the local work and the intention of the artist who made it stand out might have been the thing that gave Convergence Station its own identity, a purpose beyond simply offering shock and awe, and distinguish it from the other Meow Wolf sites.

Instead, it is the brand’s trademark spookiness that defines the place. If Meow Wolf actually is art, I struggle to find meaning in it.

Immersive art can feel new because it is trendy now, but it has a rich past, going back to early work by perceptual artists like James Turrell and Yayoi Kusama (her “Infinity Mirror Room — Phalli’s Field” was in 1965) or by adventurous theater companies like Punchdrunk, whose 2011 interactive “Macbeth” adaptation, “Sleep No More,” challenged ideas of what a play could be.

Those creators never matched the level of public interest Meow Wolf set off like a firecracker when it opened in a former bowling alley in Santa Fe in 2016. That place caught on fast, attracting 1 million visitors in less than two years and inspiring scores of imitators.

But the earlier pioneers showed that immersive art could be mind-blowing and, at the same time, strive to say something about the human condition — that thing we expect art to aspire to. It’s a standard and a purpose that Meow Wolf, with its millions of dollars and millions of visitors, might aim for.

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Editor’s note: Each week in Staff Favorites, we offer our opinions on the best that Colorado has to offer for dining, shopping, entertainment, outdoor activities and more. (We’ll also let you in on some hidden gems).

When traveling abroad, I agree with Rick Steves’ philosophy: Drink whatever the locals are drinking.

That’s how I got acquainted with Becherovka, a Czech liqueur I tried while visiting Prague and Brno in 2019. It’s become one of my favorites to pair with autumn weather. First introduced in 1807, Becherovka is a secret blend of 20 herbs and spices that was originally sought out and lauded for its medicinal benefits. The recipe is said to have remained the same since its inception.

Locals in the Czech Republic drink Becherovka straight as a shot, allowing the spicy character with notes of clove, cinnamon and star anise to envelope the senses. Upon first taste, it’s tempting to liken the pungent liqueur to Rumple Mintz or Fireball, but those are lazy comparisons. Though it’s more bitter, Becherovka is also far more delightful to imbibe, particularly as a digestif or nightcap and especially this time of year since the flavor is reminiscent of the holidays.

The bottle of Becherovka stays in my freezer and I usually sip it chilled in a miniature piece of stemware, but bartenders in the Czech Republic and beyond use it in cocktails. Black Angel’s, one of Prague’s best mixology bars, features Becherovka in a James Bond-inspired martini with vodka, Lillet Blanc and peach bitters, among other recipes.

Closer to home, Restaurant Olivia in Denver just added a fall Negroni featuring the liqueur to its menu. Made with The Family Jones’ gin, sweet and dry vermouth, house-made huckleberry bitters, spiced orange bitters and Becherovka, co-owner Austin Carson describes the cocktail as a spirit-forward negroni that finishes with fall flavors.

Carson said he likes to use Becherovka as a “seasoning” element because of its strong character, and he touted its versatility. He suggested adding it to a classic Sidecar or Cosmopolitan for extra spice.

“It’s a little higher-proof, it’s herbal forward with fun autumnal spices,” he said. “Especially after dinner, it’s a wonderful digestif. Enjoy this in lieu of your favorite amaro or grappa. It’s a fun way to finish the dining experience.”

Look for Becherovka’s signature green bottle at bars and liquor stores around Colorado.

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The peak of fall colors has arrived in Colorado’s central mountains with spectacular colors in abundance, but you might want to get up there as soon as you can if you want to see fall foliage in all its glory.

Some mountain-dwellers fear that a cold snap bringing precipitation to the state this week may cut the show short for two reasons. They say cold temperatures and moisture seem to speed up the evolution of color changes, and wind could knock off some of the leaves that have already changed.

For now, though, it’s gorgeous up there. At this time last week, folks in Aspen were saying the color change had just started, but now it’s on in full.

“We are seeing aspen in peak,” said Aspen resident Ruthie Brown. “It’s been a very quick transition and they have all of a sudden exploded into colors everywhere — reds, yellows. It’s beautiful. It happened very quickly, once the nights got cold. That really affects how quickly they change. And then moisture on top of that really makes a difference.”

Just over 20 miles to the south, Crested Butte is seeing the same.

“This week is it,” said Emma Coburn, an Olympic track athlete who grew up there. “They are peak, perfect.”

RELATED: 20 Colorado hikes for spectacular fall color

Kyle Groen, a Gypsum resident who spends a lot of time working in the Vail Valley, described a walk he took Monday near Eagle as “breathtaking.” Beaver Creek on Sunday, he added, “was aglow with yellow aspens” while the cottonwoods along the Eagle River were turning.

Up in Rocky Mountain National Park, where locals say the change came late this year, the show now seems close to a crescendo even though some of the aspens are still green.

“It’s very, very close to peak,” said Estes Park Trolleys co-owner Brandon McGowen, who runs tours in the park. “There are some brilliant reds, oranges and yellows right now, everywhere you look, but some trees are still holding onto green and haven’t dropped anything. I’d say it’s about close to prime. Maybe by the weekend. I would imagine once that cold snap hits, it’s really going to flip, the stuff that’s still green is going to change immediately. Some of the reds that have been out for about a week might even start dropping.”

With peak colors moving from north to south, the change is well under way in the Salida area, 80 miles south of Interstate 70. Local resident Melissa McLean Jory went for a mountain bike ride Monday in the Marshall Pass area and said the foliage was “spectacular,” even though the peak hasn’t arrived there yet.

“It’s not full-on yet — there’s still patches of aspens that really haven’t changed — but there are some dramatic gold colors,” McLean said. “It was just gorgeous.”

McLean is especially appreciative for this year’s color show because last year’s left something to be desired.

“This seems like a normal year,” McLean said. “Last year we had snow, September 8 and 9, and we just didn’t have a good fall like this. So this is just glorious.”

And even though the peak hasn’t arrived, McLean said this may be the best week for leaf-peeping trips there.

“There were sections driving up the road Monday where some of the leaves were blowing off, but then there’d be completely green aspen trees next to them,” McLean said. “I think the next few days, with our weather changing, may accelerate it a bit. I think two weeks is too long. I think it’s going to happen fast.”

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House prices in Denver continued their hot streak in July, hitting an all-time high for year-over-year gains, the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller home price index reported Tuesday.

Denver’s home price index increase of 21.3% made it one of seven U.S. cities to record their highest-ever 12-month gains. The other cities were New York, Boston, Charlotte, Cleveland, Dallas and Seattle, according to the index.

Overall, the West was sizzling. Phoenix, San Diego, and Seattle had the highest year-over-year gains among 20 cities. Phoenix led with 32.4%; San Diego was second with 27.8%; and Seattle was third at 25.5%.

“July 2021 is the fourth consecutive month in which the growth rate of housing prices set a record,” Craig J. Lazzara, managing director and global head of index investment strategy at S&P DJI, said in a statement.

The national price increase of 19.7% from July 2020 was the highest annual gain in more than 30 years, Lazzara said. It also marked the 14th consecutive month of accelerating prices.

In Denver, house prices rose 1.8% from June to July. The seasonally adjusted monthly gain in the national index was 1.5%.

“We have previously suggested that the strength in the U.S. housing market is being driven in part by a reaction to the COVID pandemic, as potential buyers move from urban apartments to suburban homes. July’s data are consistent with this hypothesis,” Lazzara said.

On the rental side of housing, the trend remains on an upward trajectory, too. Rents rose 2.7% in Denver from August to September, according to a monthly survey by Apartment List, an online marketplace. Rents jumped 16.5% from the same period a year ago.

The median rent in Denver is $1,501 for a one-bedroom apartment and $1,839 for a two-bedroom unit, compared to the national average of $1,275. September was the eighth-straight month that rents went up after a decline in January.

Statewide, rents were 17.2% higher than in September 2020, Apartment List said. Rents have increased across the metro area. The fastest growth has been in Parker, where rents rose 22.1% from the previous year.

The metro-area city with the most expensive rents is Lone Tree. The median rent for a two-bedroom residence there is $2,482. Arvada has the lowest median rent in the metro area at $1,653 for two bedrooms.