Five decades of change at North Boulder’s Broadway shopping center — now Pekoe café is leaving

The North Broadway Shopping Center — currently known as Ideal Broadway Shops at Alpine Avenue and Broadway — was built to serve the community. Now that sense of community is slipping away.

When the shopping center opened in 1958, it was a product of post-World War II growth. At the time, Boulder was expanding to the east and south, as well as to the north. Newlands and the other residential neighborhoods between Alpine and Iris avenues were still considered part of “North Boulder.” No longer were residents in the then-outlying areas content to take buses downtown to shop. Instead, they wanted stores that responded to their needs and offered plenty of parking. 

The changing times ushered in a new concept — suburban shopping centers. Merchants responded and listened. 

Chronologically, the North Boulder Shopping Center followed Arapahoe Village (1955) east of downtown Boulder and Basemar (1956) to the south, becoming Boulder’s third suburban center. Except for Ideal Market, originally owned by Clark Chapman and a business partner, the remaining shops were owned by Dr. H. H. Heuston, who was a former Boulder mayor and councilmember and head of the Boulder Medical Center directly to the north. 

The entire North Boulder Shopping Center was designed by prominent Boulder architect Hobart Wagener. Two years later, in 1960, he followed with Community Plaza (across Alpine Avenue). Wagener was known for bold designs. His distinctive jagged roofline on the North Broadway Center contrasts with the curved roofline on Community Plaza. 

In addition to Ideal Market, other businesses in the North Boulder Shopping Center on opening day included Gene Lang Pharmacy, Bob Ruble’s Barber Shop, the Beauty Centre, Model Laundry, Tasty Bake Shop, Manuel’s Sweet Shop, Broadway Fabrics and Johansen Hardware. By 1967, the bake shop, sweet shop and fabric store had been replaced with German’s Donuts and Sandwiches, Dairy Queen and the Uniform Shop.  

Ideal Market anchored (and still anchors) the east end. It continued to be run for many years by its co-owner, Clark Chapman, who also was on hand to interact with his customers. When he retired in 1989, he sold the store to a group of investors. At the time, a newspaper reporter wrote that the buyout “symbolized the encroachment of faceless urbanization.”

“That quote is the truth to a ‘T,’” said Jeff Rommel, co-owner of the Pekoe café, in a recent interview. Pekoe occupies the space formerly rented by the Beauty Centre, and then by the Pekoe Sip House. The Pekoe cafe won’t, however, be in its current site much longer. Corporate ownership and increasingly high rents are forcing out Rommel and his business partner, Alisha Mason. Pekoe’s future is uncertain, and its owners are looking for another location.

Rommel and Mason bought the business in February 2020, just before the onslaught of Covid. Despite that challenge, they fit in well by fulfilling the needs of the neighborhood. Rommel recently felt rewarded when he witnessed a father and daughter, not on their laptops or phones but having a real conversation. He’s also pleased when parents thank him for offering a safe after-school place for their children. Said Rommel, “We have a purpose here.”  

What many patrons don’t realize, though, is that nearby businesses affect each other. After the Gene Lang Pharmacy anchored the west end of the center for 45 years, the store was replaced, in 2003, with Pharmaca. There, the locals continued to buy drugstore items and got their prescriptions filled. The store also included a U.S. Postal Service substation that drew in a seemingly constant flow of residents who stood in line to buy stamps and mail packages. 

Customers of Pharmaca often stopped in at the Pekoe café. The latest leaseholder of the former drugstore is Alive and Well, a high-end wellness center chain based in Austin, Texas. In 2024, the owners of Alive and Well planned an expansion that forced the closure of Alpine Barbers, located between the wellness center and Pekoe. Previously known as “Charlie’s,” the shop is fondly remembered by the neighborhood’s men and boys. 

The “encroachment” mentioned years ago by the previous reporter continues. 

When Pekoe’s new owners first opened, they teamed up with longtime previous manager Nick De Maio. Together they remodeled the interior and expanded their menu to include pastries and food items, as well as a wide selection of drinks that include coffees, teas and bobas — tea-based drinks that contain tapioca balls, milk and flavoring. According to Rommel, the boba drinks are the café’s best-selling product.

Many of Pekoe’s regular customers have already stated that they will follow Rommel and Mason to a new location. When Clark Chapman left Ideal Market in 1989, one of his longtime customers penned some verses titled “It’s Hard to Let You Go” that included the following lines:

“Nostalgia for the days now gone

Was part of what we missed.

To see you go means life moves on,

And this we still resist.”

The Pekoe café is nearing the end of its lease. “I’m hoping to gracefully bow out or find another place in Boulder where rent is affordable,” said Rommel, “somewhere where there is respect for the community.”