For Pete Marczyk, the decision to open a market downtown was an easy one.
“When you get a phone call from Walter Isenberg, you listen,” the longtime Denver grocer said, referring to the founder and CEO of Denver-based Sage Hospitality as “the Godfather.”
“It was pretty interesting to see the vision through his eyes,” he continued. “And that was a really cool moment for me to be able to sit down with him and be able to hammer that out.”
What came of that months-ago conversation is the fourth location of Marczyk Fine Foods, planned for the Milk Market food hall in LoDo.
Marczyk said the 450-square-foot outpost at 1800 Wazee St. will be a stripped down but “mighty” version of his specialty grocery stores in the Uptown and Hale neighborhoods. It will sell premade entrees, soups, salads and sweets alongside a small selection of grocery items.
“It’s not our whole product mix, but we use sales data and we’ll get a product mix down there, and our customers will teach us what works and what doesn’t,” Marczyk said.
Sage, which manages Milk Market, will staff the spot. The company signed a five-year licensing agreement with Marczyk. Scott Vollmer, general manager of Dairy Block, the development that Milk Market is a part of, said he expects Marczyk to open in early 2026.
“(Marczyk) is a successful local grocery concept that embodies good quality, great service,” said Vollmer, who works for Dairy Block developer McWhinney. “And it fills a void here downtown where you’re missing a lot of the basic grocery sundry items that Marczyk does a great job of curating.”
Milk Market isn’t the first licensing agreement for Marczyk. In 2019, he signed a deal to open a spot in Denver International Airport, which finally opened a year ago after COVID-induced delays.
At Marczyk’s licensed spots, the operator — in this case Sage — buys the food from the grocer, which makes one to two daily deliveries of its fresh bread and prepared foods. Marczyk will continue cooking and shipping out of its 10,000-square-food commissary at 4850 E. 39th Ave. in Park Hill.
Marczyk, who opened his first store in 2002, said he constantly gets approached to open new locations but he needs a very specific set of circumstances to make the numbers work. He said it would cost $7 million to build out a new store, several million more than he paid decades ago.
“It’s really hard to make the math work for a grocer. Everything they say about the grocery business is true, it’s the second oldest profession, (with) prostitution being the first,” he joked. “But it’s a really super competitive space and our direct competitors are two of the largest companies in the world: Amazon and Walmart.”
In an industry where sub-5% margins are common, he views the licensed location as another way to pad his business. Marczyk also said the move helps avoid the red tape and overhead costs of a new build-out.
“This is a way for us to mitigate some risk … and add some incremental sales,” he said. “Because expectations of profitability are so low, if we just add a little it’s a lot for us.
“My managers, their job is to find $50 a day they can add to the bottom line,” he continued. “And that’s a significant percentage of profit that we can add.”
Marczyk opening at Milk Market continues Sage’s new plan to get outside operators in the food hall, which restaurateur Frank Bonanno opened in 2018 and sold to Sage in 2023. Over the summer, Milk Market added Konjo Ethiopian Food, The Lucky Bird fried chicken and YumCha, a noodles and dumplings concept by ChoLon owner Lon Symensma.
Read more from our partner, BusinessDen.
Get more business news by signing up for our Economy Now newsletter.
Want more insights? Join Working Title - our career elevating newsletter and get the future of work delivered weekly.
