The LoCo PULSE | Week of April 19th, 2026

Kurt, welcome back to Noco. Thank you. Good to be back. The weather surprised us with a snow surprise. Right. Is this a little different than where you were last week? We had 78 greas and mostly sunny every day, such as why I'm such a snowy glow. I feel like I'm ready for summer now. Thank you to Andrea and Scott Grant for hosting my wife and I last weekend down in Florida. Oh, wonderful. This is the co-founder of Locoh think tank. Oh, very nice. You're going to come in that story sometime. Yeah. Maybe not here. Not right now. And thank you for Jamie Hammond for stepping in and making sure that we still got you all the updates last week. Welcome to the Locoh polls where each week we're keeping our finger on the pulse of Noco to keep you updated on all your local community and business news. I'm Kurt Bear, the owner and founder of Locoh think tank and the host of the Locoh experience podcast. And I'm Kelsey Harris, the owner of this is Noco and Discover Noco magazine. Let's get started this week. What's moving? Well, the on the move segment is brought to you by miles beyond running community, the creators of the Run Windsor race series. Their next event is the Weld your metal running festival May 30th and 31st on a 146 acre private property in Eaton. Festival includes distances from seven K run walk up to 100 miles individual or for the bold a 36 hour total mileage contest. Oh, this one's all about community. There's camping and glamping and sauna and cold plunge and massage and food and drink. So it's a super family friendly event and you don't really have to be a crazy runner to take part. Or if your husband is, you can still do the seven K walk. Yes, that's you can get involved. You're definitely going to need the sauna and the cold. No matter what you're doing, but I also saw Run Windsor posted their cleanup of the urban ultra. So they were going back through the course because they had to pick up all their flags. And I thought that was a super cool behind the scenes. So if you don't follow them, definitely follow Run Windsor on all socials because they give you some cool insight into what goes on in putting on these cool races. I followed along with the Wild West relay a few years ago with the tank a couple years ago and interviewed a lot of the volunteers at the different stations and some of the running teams about what their cause was. Oh, really? It was a super good time. I never really published that content. Yeah, that's what I was like, where can we see that? So anyway, my on the move feature this week is Chiba Hut and specifically elevated ink, the largest franchisee for Chiba Hut. They opened their 25th location last week just in time for 420 and that's in Las Vegas, Nevada. Chiba Hut now has over 80 locations across the country and a plan to grow to 200 locations by 2030. The director as the CEO has been a local member for over 10 years, super proud of him. And the fun thing is their grand opening party. The first three people in line get a weekly Chiba Hut sandwich free for a year. Wow. So I wonder when those first, I'm guessing like a day and a half ago. Oh, yeah. They're going to have to be there early. And that's, I don't know if this is their first location in Vegas, but if not, the Vegas seems perfect for this. Yeah, they've been believed in Los Angeles or Las Vegas area for a few years. Yeah. But perfect. Go get them if you're down there. Yes. And maybe get in line now. I'm going to go visit Vegas, but this week, a new type of brewery tour is rolling into Northern Colorado. Okay. I have been watching this company online for a few months waiting to see when tickets will go on sale and when they will launch and they just launched and it is the beer tour in. It's a four hour brewery tour and a vintage Swiss pin scour, thank you. This is an army vehicle. You'll know it when you see it. But to hit three breweries and have a full lunch at a local restaurant, I love a novelty vehicle. So just getting to spend time in one is fun. I get a little bit like our two year old. He spends most of his day yelling bus out the window at city buses. So I'm excited to just yell at this vehicle. Do you know how many people can fit? I don't. I think eight is what I saw. It's a pretty good size vehicle. And so maybe this will be a local field trip. Yeah, we can document that so if you want to go, let's go. All right. Next up is our community gathering segment. This is sponsored by Ginger and Baker. And I hope that you all headed out to their Louisiana crawfish boil. That was last week. It looked so good and they have their murder mystery event coming up. It is getting closer and closer that is on May 19. So make sure that you get your tickets so that you can be prepared to figure out who the murderer is. My community gathering space today is Pedro's coffee in Timnith and especially the community marketplaces they're having on the third Saturdays of each month. So you just missed it when you're listening to this. It's tomorrow, technically when we're recording, but they'll have over 30 vendors, local businesses. And so the next one is May 16th and Pedro's coffee is awesome. It's like a little farm kind of setting out north of Timnith and they'll have live music there as well as food and drink from Pedro's and just a great mix of local business owners. So go check that out. May 16th. Awesome. Yeah. I just saw those. My mother-in-law came and had a sticker for it on her Pedro's coffee and I was like, oh, I didn't know about these. So definitely check out their markets. What do you got today? I'm cheating a little bit and giving us a gathering and a nonprofit sponsorship. Okay. So next Thursday, the 23rd, the whole house is hosting their very first casino night. This is at the Crest Cinema and Lounge in Greeley. So definitely get out. You're not playing to win money. There are prizes at the end of the night, but you are supporting whole house, which empowers team parents that are parenting to get personal and economic self-sufficiency. So definitely grab some tickets to the casino night and let's play some poker. My leadership Northern Colorado group met at that Crest Cinema and it's amazing. It's so cool. We love the Crest. I agree. It's a perfect location for a casino too, so. So the Noco beat is our weekly arts and entertainment segment and Kelsey, do you want to their first one there? I do. I'm really focusing on arts this week and there actually are two different art reception openings at the exact same time this week. So unfortunately you are going to have to pick one, but they are both, both shows will be open until June. So no matter which opening you head to, definitely check out both shows. So in Loveland, the governor's art show is opening on Friday night and this will be up until June 6th. This is a jurored art show. It's from artists all over Colorado. Last year Ben and I attended the opening gala and the governor came and spoke about why this art show is important and kind of who these artists are and all of the artists are at the opening reception. So you can talk to them, but if you can't go this week, they'll be open until June 6th and they do like live painting events on different Saturdays throughout. So definitely check out those in Fort Collins. A new show is opening at the foothills mall with Louise Cutler and 15 other artists. There will be 60 works in the foothills mall in the empty storefront displays. And so that one is up until the end of June. And so check out either one, the governor's gala, always. We need the reason to go to the mall and the art brings us there. I met Louise, I don't know if she mentioned that, but we had coffee together a couple weeks going, she's just lovely. She's wonderful. She's wonderful too. That's what I was like. She's lovely. So if you haven't met Louise, she's lovely. We agree. So you should also meet her. Check it out as well. But what are you checking? Music or art? No, it's music. It's a focal MX starting this Friday to be a clock, the 24th, all day, Saturday from like 10 a.m. until past midnight, 400 bands, 30 plus venues, one wristband, I think $60 wrist band. Yeah. It's not that bad. You can literally watch like 25 music shows for 60 bucks. Yeah, that's. Plus whatever your beer budget is. Which that might be more than 60 bucks for two days. But if you haven't, if you're going on their website, they actually have a like a build your own schedule, which I think is super important because otherwise you're going to miss somebody you want to see in that 400. So had their website first. I run around like a two with my head closed at many times. Yes. You're just trying to get places. Community supporting community segment brought to you by Breeze Through Car Wash. I hope that you saw them at two awesome events this weekend. They were at both the Odell sustainable living, the sustainable living Earth Day cleanup and festival this weekend on Saturday and at the horse tooth half marathon on Sunday. If you see them out and about, they have tables there there to talk. They want you to make sure what Breeze Through is doing in the community. Tell them that you heard about it on the local pulse and let them know that you're coming in to get a car wash soon. So I hope you saw them. Yeah. And thank you to Breeze Through for sponsoring this local pulse podcast. Yes. Enjoy. This week, I just heard about a new event coming up in Loveland called the Forks and Fury event. This is the great community kitchen, but cook off and they are celebrating 30 years of the Loveland community kitchen by doing a homegrown talent homegrown impact cook off event. And so on May 14th at venue 319, you can go there will be local chefs, restaurants, communities have made different things. My mouth is watering. I know. I got the email and I was like, well, I'm so excited for this. But so we all get to vote on our favorite option as guests to support the community kitchen. That is so cool. This week, I'm highlighting the mayorettes, a collective of local business leading ladies that they have a mission to uplift local non profits and small businesses and to inspire the community to elevated living and impactful giving. Yes. I think I've only met Kerry out of them, but I'm excited to meet the rest of them. I've known Kerry for years. So Kerry Lugan Bill from Old Town Media, Julie Diaz is an HR professional. And then Jackie Christmas owns the Gallipots lawn. Oh, okay. So those three are going to be my guests on the local experience in mid May. Perfect. I'm so excited to hear kind of how they formed this and what their goals are. So Kerry's great. I'm sure the others are great too. I've just only met Kerry. Seems like so far. So I'm looking forward to that and just wanted to highlight that. Give them a follow on their Instagram if you hear about it and you'll not regret it. I promise. Yeah, they're always highlighting amazing things happening in the nonprofit world. So definitely check them out. We've got the regional business spotlight next. Oh, yes. That's what's coming up. I think in two weeks, we've got a big event coming up. It is true. The third annual next level leadership forum, April 29 at Ginger and Baker. This year's event is cultivate culture and inside job. And so this is designed for the leadership teams as well as the owners of regional businesses. Mark Weaver is our expert guru on culture and our workshop leader. And it's an 830 to 230 PM event with breakfast and lunch from Ginger and Baker. So go to our events page at locothinktank.com to learn more and register your team. You won't regret it. Another thing I want to mention is I had lunch with Curtis Carlson, my former protégé from the banking years. When I left banking, he was my coworker and colleague. And he's now a banker at Adams Bank and Trust and they have an owner occupied commercial real estate loan special right now with reduced fees up to 80% loan to value. Really good rates. Five or seven year fixed. And yeah, you'll be impressed with the character of that organization. I work for Adams Bank back in the day in Colorado Springs, but got to know the family then and they just transitioned to their fifth generation of leadership. Wow. That's super cool. All still family. All family. Wow. I feel like you don't see that. That many generations. No. Maybe two generations. Yeah. That's really impressive. It means they're doing something right. It's true. Well, that's I got to meet the executive director of the birthed Chamber of Commerce, Tavia Roth last night. She is another MC at the Hope Blooms fashion show with me. And I am just kind of so excited to learn about what's going on in birthed, what the chamber is doing. I've had multiple people mention birthed lemonade days to me as something that we need to check out. Okay. And so I'm excited to chat with her more. And I really didn't know anything about chambers or what they did until this year when we joined the Fort Collins Chamber. So really just kind of getting to know them in the ways they support their communities. I think even for non-business owners, it's really important. So check out the birthed Chamber, check out all the chambers wherever you are, but shout out to Tavia. She is doing a great job in that role. I love birthed, frankly, like it's a gem with the way their main street is framed by the mountains and kind of going off to the west through hygiene and different areas. Yeah. It's just a favorite for me. Yeah. And it feels still small, but it's close and they have a bunch of things happening that I didn't know about before, so like lemonade days, which is May 16, so it's coming up. You don't want to miss it. But I always am thinking about food. We always have to eat, which is why our last segment is always no co-eats. What are we eating? What are we looking at? This week, though, I seem to always be highlighting something I want to drink instead of something I want to eat lately. But I want to urge all of us to hit up human bean next week on Earth Day, the 22nd, because they are doing their one drink, one tree campaign. So for every drink that you purchase, they will plant a tree. That's cool. So I think as many of us as we can get out there, they can happen. I will personally be ordering the salted maple shaken espresso. It's what I always order, but get out Wednesday, the 22nd, and any of the Northern Colorado locations, they'll do one drink, one tree. That is really cool. Yeah. Do they plant themselves? Do the team go out? I think they pay contractor to plant them. That's maybe some of them they go out, but yeah, but I stopped by the gelato and more shop over on North College. No, on West Pacific Park, like. And it has so much more than gelato. They've got like 15 kinds of gelato, but they've also got like an full Italian market, right? Oh. Vinegar, lavazza, coffee, taken bake, lasagna, and zupas, and it's like super authentic real Italian people. Okay. And I had the, the special, the Wednesday lunch special is a, they called it a pizza roll, but it was an Italian sausage, the best one I've ever had, stuffed with sauteed peppers and onions, covered with mozzarella, and put in like a hoagie roll, and then kind of pressed like the style almost. And it was so good. And I'm going to be back there regularly. Yeah, that's what I was like. They're leaning into the end more, which I don't think I ever knew. I didn't realize. Yeah, exactly. I'm, we had an Italian extension last fall, and I never took her there. Oh, no, no. Yeah. So Sarah, if you listen to this, I'm sorry. I didn't know, and when you come back to Colorado, we'll take you there. First thing. Yeah. Now we know where the authentic food is, but I'm going to have to go try it, especially hearing they have a lunch special. I'm always looking for, and the smells always waiting for my sandwiches. Just so nice. So, okay. Yeah. I haven't been there. We have to try it. But over here, we are at loco for local. So we want to know how you are supporting local this week. Let us know what you did, where you shopped, what food you had, and we're going to pick one of them to highlight each week. So if you can tag us, send us a DM. We want to know where you're shopping. What local nonprofit you supported? Yes, that's a perfect one. Any ghost ones will qualify. Anything local we want to know about it. Tag us at the local, the loco experience, or send us a DM, and we'll shout out next week. So thanks for being back, Kurt. Pleasure to be here with you. Have a great week, Noco.