A new pizzeria and small market is making its way to Main Street.
Urban Field Pizza and Market will serve and deliver pizza and Italian favorites, but that’s just part of the business model. A small market carrying pre-prepared meals, house-made items such as the restaurant’s salad dressings and sauces and locally-sourced groceries. Original cocktail recipes will be served at the full bar.
Urban Field is set to open at 150 Main Street, Suite 202 in the mixed-use community South Main Station. Though it originally eyed late March for opening, pandemic-related shipping delays has Urban Field aiming for early April.
The restaurant concept is led by familiar faces in the local restaurant scene, Paul Nashak, Urban Field’s proprietor, and Nick Swanson, culinary director and co-owner. Nashak is a partner in three Mountain Sun Pubs and Breweries: Vine Street Pub and Brewery in Denver, Under the Sun Pub and Pizza in Boulder, and Longs Peak Pub and Taphouse in Longmont. Swanson has worked as kitchen manager of Boulder’s Mountain Sun Pub on Pearl Street and executive chef of Under the Sun.
The other half of the management team includes another Mountain Sun vet, Operations Director Lindsey Beddard, and Beverage Director Darrin Gilman who developed the cocktail menu.
Though Urban Field is a restaurant-market hybrid, pizza will be its flagship product. The style will be Swanson’s creation and reminiscent of Detroit pizza and Nashak’s roots in New York.
“In New York, where I'm from, the pizza shops have these little backrooms where you can find just the greatest red sauce Italian menus anywhere in the world — besides Italy of course,” Nashak said. “And that's what we're trying to do with Urban Field. We want to create the best pizza on the Front Range and pizza has to be the first thing that we can stand on.”
Urban Field will be taking a “hybrid service” approach with order stations before sitting, servers using technology to type in their orders tableside rather than using a traditional POS system.
Swanson said they wanted a well-rounded menu outside of pizza with appetizers, salads and main courses. He wants it to be a one-stop-shop for families to all find something they want to order on the menu.
Urban Field will serve what it described as “grandma classics,” or comforting, homey meals with a twist. Swanson said he’s using his background as a chef to elevate familiar foods like pizza and pasta.
“I grew up with the basics, you know, lasagna, spaghetti and meatballs, chicken pot pies, things like that. And my mom, my grandma, they did a great job, but by no means are they classically trained chefs. So we want to take those classics, and reinvent them a little bit,” Swanson said. “We're trying to do something that's already been done, but do it really well.”
Urban Field is building local partnerships to source ingredients close to home. Longmont’s Whistling Boar developed a gluten free, vegan pizza crust for the restaurant and a sandwich roll special to Urban Field. Greens for salads and vegetables to sell in the market will be provided by Zeb Farms in Erie. Though they can’t name the company yet, Swanson and Nashak said they are working on getting local meats for the market.
For Nashak, besides having fresh ingredients for its restaurant and market it was important to work with local farms and vendors to foster community.
“I think one of the things that we learned through COVID is, the more self-sustained you can be, the easier it is going to be for that community to get through these crises and COVID is probably not going to be the last that we see,” Nashak said. “I just came out of COVID with this notion of let's support each other and support the people down the block from you. Have them support you as we're in this together. And I just love the idea of products and food that I know where it came from.”
Nashak said he wants Urban Field’s location in South Main Station to serve the tenants for its market needs. South Main Station is a large-scale redevelopment of the former Butterball Turkey plant, which completed its first construction phase in 2020 including 253 apartment units.
“We really want to cater to the community we have around us,” Swanson said. “And with these apartment buildings here. We want to make sure that people have things available to them, you know, if they run out of sugar, they can come downstairs and grab some.”
Though Urban Field’s doors won’t open until April, Nashak has been posting videos and blog updates on the restaurant. He said it’s never too early to start community engagement.
