At the edge of Ballpark and RiNo, two brothers have debuted a twist on the classic hydroponic farm.
Farm & Market, which Davis and Austin Breedlove opened Sept. 16, has the typical vertical “towers” — 1,080 of them, specifically — with lettuce and other greens sprouting from them through a soil-less system.
But unlike most similar operations, which sell to restaurants or grocery stores, the Breedloves are selling their produce onsite, in resealable plastic bags. They pick a small amount of most varieties each day, as opposed to harvesting the entire crop of a particular green and then waiting weeks for the next one. The only restaurant they supply is the one they run at the rear of the building, which serves vegetable-heavy soups, salads and bowls.
Davis, 32, is the CEO. The University of Southern California graduate worked in tech but was always a “backyard farmer.” Now he’s gone pro and runs the farm, which takes up about half the building at 2401 Larimer St.
“I’ve always loved growing plants,” he said.
Austin, 30, runs the restaurant side. He got a degree in psychology at Texas Christian University, then later went to Boulder’s Auguste Escoffier School of Culinary Arts and worked at Denver restaurant Root Down.
Davis said the pair expected to have to educate their customers on “why” their business does what it does. Produce loses nutrients in the days or weeks they sit waiting to be sold and eaten, they note. The items sold at the grocery store are the items that can stand the rigor of being shipped hundreds of miles.
“Turns out the ‘what’ we are is the first thing we’d need to educate on,” Davis said.
“The three parts in one is kind of a hard thing for people to wrap their head around,” Austin said.
Part 1 is the farm, which is accessible only to employees but can be seen through glass by anyone who walks into the building. Growing under bright lights are eight types of head lettuce, eight types of kale and a half-dozen mustard greens, as well as herbs and microgreens.
The setup cost about $300,000 to build. At max capacity, the operation is expected to grow enough for 900 to 1,000 salads a day.
“We grow a lot of varieties that most people haven’t heard about, because they don’t have good shelf life, so grocery stores don’t carry them,” Davis said.
Some of the lettuce and herbs are packaged for sale in Part 2, the market on the other side of the glass. On Friday, a sizable 3.85-ounce bag of wasabina mustard greens — whose flavor profile ends with a hit of wasabi — set a reporter back $4.18, including tax.
The market also includes a couple of refrigerated cases, which sell drinks, house-made dressings and various other items that one might throw on a salad at home.
Additionally, each day a tower or two of unharvested plants, along with a couple types of microgreens, are moved from the farm to the checkout counter, where they can be picked on demand for customers in what Austin called “a butcher shop for herbs.”
“You’re getting it as fresh as possible,” Davis said.
Part 3 is the aforementioned restaurant in the back, where bowls and salads topped with a protein such as chicken, tofu or salmon are generally in the $16-to-$22 range.
The pair expect two-thirds of revenue to come from the restaurant, with the farm and market providing the remainder. The market opens at 9:30 a.m., and the restaurant opens at 11 a.m. Both close at 7 p.m.
The brothers were born in the Denver area, where their parents Bill and Stephanie started a firm called Breedlove & Associates.
“They grew up in an entrepreneurial household,” Stephanie said.
When the boys were around 6 and 7, the family moved to be closer to family in Texas, and in 2012 the company — described at the time as “the largest provider of comprehensive household payroll, tax and compliance services in the U.S.” — was acquired and rebranded.
Austin moved back to the Denver area about five years ago. His brother and parents followed. In 2021, their new family office, Breedlove Capital, paid $3.38 million for the building and a small parking lot across the alley. SRS Real Estate Partners represented the firm in the deal.
“This is an 87-year-old building that was dying,” Stephanie Breedlove said.
Stephanie said the building just off Broadway was originally built to store potatoes, which were then ferried to various neighborhood grocery stores. It eventually was converted into office space.
“When we bought it, it had about three dozen cubes in it, a leaky roof and a small bathroom,” she said.
Stephanie estimated the family office, which is also the only investor in Farm & Market, spent another $2 million fixing up the building. The floors are original, as are the brick walls, although the brick has been painted. For a time, Stephanie said, it appeared Denver’s Landmark Preservation Commission might force them to remove the “fin” that rises from the roof — a key reason the family bought the building — but it was ultimately decided it could stay.
Davis said he’d love to expand the operation beyond greens in the future, to things like cucumbers and tomatoes, although those wouldn’t grow vertically and would have to be planted at another location.
“Our dream is to have a full produce section,” he said.
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This story was reported by our partner BusinessDen.