Dinner Break!!! Colorado Feed & Grain Cookhouse, Ft. Collins, CO

The best part of hunting down abandoned buildings, is finding some good ones when and where you least expect it...


In March 2013, we drove up to Fort Collins, Colorado, to visit some friends. In the parking lot of our hotel was a restaurant. That isn't news to anyone... Most hotels directly off the interstate keep restaurants in their parking lots... So who cares? 

Well, this restaurant was permanently closed. So now I care!


Knowing nothing about the place, I made my way up the front steps to see what could be seen. All of the windows remained uncovered, and the outdoor patio was still open without crossing any barriers.

I'd forgotten that I'd even taken these pictures until I found them on the external drive, last week. So it was time for a little research...

This building previously housed the Colorado Feed & Grain Cookhouse, the restaurant moved to Ft. Collins from it's former location in Timnath, CO in October 2010.



Of all the different "sorry, we're closed" notes that end up on permanently locked entrance doors, 
this ranks as one of my favorites... 



If you were to enter those doors, this was the lobby that greeted you. 


What you could see looking to the right...


And what you could see looking to the left...


The Colorado Feed & Grain Cookhouse's last facebook update was December 2011. 

According to this review I found, the CF&G closed that same month. 

The reviews were pretty positive on the place though...


A look at the bar on the west side of the building. 

The restaurant also featured a stage for live music on weekends, but I did not see it.


Disassembled booths and restaurant fixtures were piled up on the east side. When I was taking these pictures, I thought that everything still looked fairly new and clean. I never would have guessed it had already been closed for longer than 2 years...


Another room with more tables and chairs.


The patio on the west side of the building doubled as the bar's smoking area. Beyond the deck, was where Colorado Feed & Grain utilized their on on-site BBQ smoker.


I was so busy taking pictures, I didn't even notice this cute little kitty staring at me taking pictures. 

*****

Looking for an update via Google; as of July 2015, the building still looks the same. The windows are still uncovered, and the Colorado Feed & Grain Cookhouse's sign still standing.

As if the place was still open...

As of today, also according to Google, there are no businesses running at the oddly roofed round building. Nor have any since Colorado Feed & Grain Cookhouse closed in December 2011.

Back in March 2013, I had no formal plans for these pictures, otherwise, I would have taken a lot more. The lack of a plan has to justify the brevity of my earlier subjects. I was only starting to put together the potential of photographing abandoned buildings in detail, for future writing purposes. Which at the time were planned for print editions of Wasted Quarter. But this material outgrew the possibility of ever printing it all.

So here is where that stuff goes...


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