Ana Fanakra sat in her bakery on the 16th Street Mall on what turned out to be its last day in business, Feb. 3, waiting for customers. But not many came, and she decided to close up early.
“We had really low sales that day,” she said. “We hadn’t even made $100 yet, which was a very accurate picture of what the last couple of months looked like for us.”
The next day, she decided to call it quits, closing both the original location of Ana’s Norwegian Bakeri, which opened in Centennial in June 2021, and the downtown bakery, at 918 16th Street Mall, which had opened in November 2023. Then she filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
“After everything was said and done, I realized that 90- to 100-hour weeks really weren’t sustainable, and I grew apart from my family, which defeated the purpose of having my own business in the first place,” she said. “I lost track of what was important because I really wanted to open this location, but I was sacrificing myself for no return, and I don’t want to lose where I live.”
Not coincidentally, Ana’s Norwegian Bakeri was also the first and last food-and-beverage business to participate in Popup Denver, a highly-publicized program started in 2022 by the Downtown Denver Partnership and the city as a way to bring small businesses back to the 16th Street Mall. The strip has suffered for many years from declining traffic, followed by the COVID-19 pandemic, drug, crime and homelessness problems, as well as a massive construction project, which isn’t supposed to be completed until the fall of 2025.
Ana’s was chosen out of a long list of interested food and beverage businesses and received free rent for eight months, a $40,000 grant for tenant support, plus an additional $10,000 for contingency funding, according to the DDP.
But Fanakra said that several things were working against her. For starters, the permitting process with the city took so long that her opening date was pushed from summer to late fall.
“Opening at the slowest time of the year would be bad for any business, but especially a small business because we’re not sitting on a big cash reserve,” Fanakra said. “We needed the foot traffic, and it’s not there when you get into November. We were relying on that, so instead of having the revenue we needed to make both locations thrive, I had to put personal money into the business and haven’t been able to pay myself for a year.”
In addition, although most Popup Denver spaces are made available for six to nine months, Fanakra worked out a four-year lease with her landlord. But she discovered later that the lease required a $20,000 deposit, something she said she hadn’t been aware of.
Fanakra is frustrated, but she still believes Popup Denver is a good bet. “I think it is a really great concept, but I think the program needs more oversight, especially for issues like delayed openings, and more transparency on costs for small businesses,” she said.
Related: With an explosion of new bakeries, Denver is finally getting its just desserts
“The construction, crime and homelessness were not an issue for me, and it’s interesting that what put me out of business was not that but how the program held us back,” Fanakra said.
DDP president and CEO Kourtny Garrett acknowledged that the program is more difficult for food-and-beverage operators than other kinds of retail stores.
“It’s very challenging in terms of what you have to do to configure the space with equipment and infrastructure, as well as the time that it takes to open,” she said.
“Entrepreneurs need to move fast in a popup program, and six to nine months to open is much harder in a food and beverage environment. Plus, the investment that’s needed from a business and landlord is much more costly in terms of time and resources,” she added.
As a result of what DDP has learned, Popup Denver will only accept retailers of soft goods, such as clothing or furniture shops (those without food and beverage components), for its third round of applications, which continue through March 8. Popup Denver has had four businesses graduate through the program and debut their business on the 16th Street Mall, including Travel Posters, Gallery 16 and Image En Mouvement, an art collective. Currently, two businesses are finishing out their short-term leases: The Museum for Black Girls, an immersive popup, and Abstract Denver, a clothing store.
Fanakra was initially hesitant to open in downtown Denver because of what she’d heard about the construction project, homelessness and crime. But the attractive grants won her over. In the end, though, she feels she would have had to shut down the business anyway, even if she’d never opened the second store. But “I wouldn’t have taken on more debt,” she added.
A Norwegian immigrant, Fanakra started her business out of her home in 2020 to satisfy her craving for a taste of home, selling her Norwegian-style cinnamon, raisin and cardamom rolls at various popups and farmers markets in town. She went on to open the first brick-and-mortar space in Centennial the next year.
“The community we built has made a difference to a lot of people, especially for first-generation Norwegians,” Fanakra said. “I’ve made some amazing friends, and in the grand scheme of things, this community will continue without the bakery, which is what I wanted in the first place.”
Subscribe to our new food newsletter, Stuffed, to get Denver food and drink news sent straight to your inbox.
