For bicyclists undertaking the scenic yet strenuous 20-mile ride from Boulder to Ward, the Utica Street Market represented the light at the end of the tunnel.
Under the ownership of Fred and Mary Morse for the last 14 years, the store took weary bikers back to a simpler time, offering them homemade snacks and refreshments in an old mining shack in the Lefthand Canyon.
“After that long of a bike ride you feel giddy anyways, but the market got you into the spirit of Ward,” said Jeff Ramsey, an avid bicyclist from Boulder. “It was really loose and really welcoming. I remember one time my wife and got talking with Fred and ended up hula-hooping with him in the backyard.”
For the locals though, it was mostly a tourist trap they rarely visited unless it was to stop in and say hi to the Morses.
Katrina and Jesse Pattridge, however, remembered when the main stretch of Utica Street was lined with stores, creating a kind of social center for the town that brought the community together. With little of that remaining, the couple bought the Utica Street Market this winter with plans to help reinvigorate some of that community spirit.
The revived and renamed market, now dubbed Jackleggers, opens Saturday.
“My husband and I both grew up here but it’s gotten to a point where there aren’t any cool, community things going on in town anymore,” Katrina Pattridge said. “There was the Millsite Inn, but they drank all their alcohol, so they closed for years. Morocco’s Family Dining is awesome and they do great Italian food, but they’re fancier and are closed for a lot of the winter.”
While the Pattridges were looking to create a low-key atmosphere, the somewhat rundown market, which was first built as a house in 1901, needed some “TLC,” at Katrina Pattridge put it.
With Jesse Pattridge working as a contractor for Droptine Builders, the couple and their two daughters, Autumn and Brook, were able to gut and remodel the interior of the main building in just two and a half weeks.
Not only did they redo all of the electrical wiring and install new walls, floors and a new bar, they also created a new space for the kitchen, enabling them to expand the market’s menu and offer sandwiches, burritos and freshly baked goods from Katrina Pattridge’s mom, Christine Gilbert.
The store will still offer all of the old favorites cyclists have enjoyed in the past — Autumn even received Fred Morse’s special barista training to make the espressos just right — but by opening a half an hour earlier, at 6:30 a.m., they hope to catch all of the early morning commuters and in the summer, they plan to stay open late some nights to host community barbecues and live music.
Jackleggers also will act as a sort of market for the locals, providing the essentials such as eggs, milk, bread, and an ATM.
For Katrina and Jesse Pattridge, the store gives them a chance to raise their daughters in a similarly hard-working, yet fun-loving community they remember from their own childhoods. Katrina Pattridge even took her first steps in the yard of the house that became the Utica Street Market 33 years ago.
“I want the girls to have a place where they can learn to work and make mistakes and grow in that way,” Katrina Pattridge said, “because work ethic these days is out the window.”
With construction complete and the girls ready to get to work, the Pattridges will open Jackleggers at 6:30 a.m. Saturday, and will be open Tuesdays through Sundays until 7 p.m. in the summer and 6 p.m. in the winter.
