Tracing Boulder's Natural Food Roots to a Carnival

By Roger Freed

Editor’s note: The following is a recollection of one of Boulder’s first natural foods restaurants, the Carnival Café.

Let`s go back to the early 1970s, a time when Boulder was a simpler place to live and life was slower paced.

The pedestrian mall on Pearl Street had yet to be built, the old Crossroads Mall was a small shopping center, and the summer’s big bicycle race was still called the Red Zinger Classic. Fields of grain grew beyond 30th Street. 

Celestial Seasonings made its soon-to-be, world-famous teas out at the industrial park on 55th, which pretty much delineated where Boulder ended and the prairie began. 

Broomfield was a small cluster of homes with no nucleus, and the suburban tentacles of Denver were still miles away. Boulder had not yet acquired the upper-class glitz that it now has.

Along Broadway, between Canyon and Pearl, existed a row of so-called “head shops”--old wooden storefronts, some from the early part of the century, that had been taken over by young entrepreneurs who offered various services.

For a short period of time, there existed in the middle of them a quintessential example of the hippie, love, sharing-caring movement introduced by the ’60s. It was a small restaurant brightly named the Carnival Cafe, a gypsy-esque bundle of energy that exuded beyond the perimeters of its walls. Outside it looked a bit faded and worn at the elbows, but to enter within was to be ushered into a whole other realm.

The Carnival Cafe was a colorful potpourri of enthusiastic alternativeness. Vibrant posters papered the walls, and plants possessed corners and overflowed from shelves. A huge, U-shaped, glass display counter dominated the middle of the main dining room and housed hand-made trinkets for sale and whole-grain goodies generous in their size, price and healthy ingredients. 

The insider name of the bakery section was “the Dateful Bread.” Behind the back counter, bangle-bedecked girls in tie-dye T-shirts and saris baked next to the long-haired fellows in sandals who were cooking.

One corner was a children’s play area with toys.

Music laced the air, ranging from folk to the Grateful Dead. The atmosphere was thick with character, laughter and love. When one came to the Carnival to eat, it was not just a feast for the tongue and stomach, but one for the senses and spirit, too. The Cafe started out as the “Carnival Restaurant” in September 1972, created by five friends who took over a vegetarian eatery called the Family Table Restaurant. They were soon joined by other similar-minded friends, bringing their number to 13.

Mark Gunther helped get it going by bringing his significant experience in cooperative operations that he had gained in Berkeley, Calif. Others in the troupe had been involved in a food cooperative in the same area. The “Carnies” were a lively bunch, involved in theater, clowning and dance.

Photo provided by Roger Freed

The name “Carnival” came from a busker’s carnival on the library mall that they participated in that summer. The core idea in the enterprise was that “Life is a Carnival,” and it should be so lived, as stated by a famous banner they had displayed in the kitchen.

By 1974 only Margaret Theno of the original 13 remained, but the cafe had expanded to 14 fulltime and five part-time workers. The fare was vegetarian and as organic as was possible in those pre-Wild Oats days. The only true organic produce back then came in from local farms and was limited to a few lettuces, potatoes and green vegetables. But the Carnival still turned out meals that have never been equaled in wholesomeness and creativity by any of Boulder’s healthier restaurants throughout the years. No pesticides, chemical fertilizers or herbicides were used on the produce. Whatever people ordered, they could be assured that they would get a plateful of healthy grub, rich in vibrant ingredients and love.

The cafe started out as a collective. Everyone would share the tips and managerial duties and would divide the earnings amongst themselves. They shared a checkbook called the “Sojourner Truth Memorial Checking Account.” 

All lived in two houses that the Cafe paid for. When this proved difficult, they changed to a system where one could work 14 hours a week for unlimited meals and groceries, or 28 hours a week for meals, groceries and some managerial responsibilities. Many of the Carnies had second jobs where they earned their real living wages. On each shift, people chose which jobs they wanted to do that day. Those who worked on a particular shift were the authority for that shift. Everyone would stay an hour after closing to clean. 
There were some in town who questioned how sanitary the place was, but the Carnival’s rating with the health board was always very high.

The Carnies always had a goal to make enough money to pay off their debt. Gunther had loaned the money to buy it, and by 1975 the debt was paid off. At one point, a legal pad was passed around, and 26 “employees” signed on as legal owners, meaning it truly belonged to the people working there. They, in turn, felt that the Carnival belonged to the community, and that working there was a form of service to the people of Boulder. The Carnival had the cheapest prices in town and great quality to boot, in contrast to today’s premium prices for natural food in restaurants.

The daily special was advertised by a sign saying, “The Carnival’s daily love gift.” On Thanksgiving, meals were free to all who entered the door, although the soybean drumsticks they had one year didn’t go over too well. There was a counter space where people could leave their plates if they could not finish their meals. The food would be put on a fresh plate, and anyone who did not have money or was hard up could come in and eat it. There was one guy who came in for a year and lived on it.

On Sunday mornings, the Carnies held “the meeting.” It would start with everyone sitting in a circle and chanting the spiritual meditation word “om.”
Then they would stand in a circle and massage the shoulders of the person before them, then turn and repeat with the person on the other side. After that, it got down to business. Everyone had a voice in what was going on, even visitors. Once, a major debate took place about whether to serve coffee or not (coffee being a major source of both bad health and worker exploitation).

Working at the cafe was always an adventure. One time, the electricity went out and all the perishables in the cooler were going to be lost. The owner of the New York Deli, Tony Schwartz, sent employees over with bags of ice to help out. One customer remembers a day when a fly paper strip lost its mooring on the ceiling and fell, draping itself around a customer.

The cafe was visited by the likes of Joni Mitchell, Alan Ginsburg, Black Elk, Dan Fogelberg and Steven Stills. Mitchell once drew a picture of the cafe turning into a parking lot, which was added to the Carnival scrapbook. East- West Journal, Yoga Journal and others heralded the Carnival as the prototype of a collective business in the U.S. Celestial Seasonings mogul Moe Seigel used to deliver fresh herbs to them that he carried in his backpack on a bicycle.

For everyone, the cafe was more a lifestyle than a job.

“I am so grateful for the experience of love the cafe gave to me at such a critical time in my life,” Doe Gregoire says.

Cedar Geiger adds, “The cafe seemed to be a combination of many things to many of us. Lots of us were just frustrated with not having a skill, not having a home, not having friends/ family, etc. Here we found real family and a life learning experience that made us all a part of who we are now.”

But all good things must come to an end. In 1977, the city announced that the entire block would be torn down to make room for a parking lot. The Carnival had always had a month-to-month lease, and it was known when they got the place in 1972 that this would be its fate one day. Still, the Carnies were shattered.

People made parallels to Mitchell’s lyrics, saying “they paved paradise and put up a parking lot.” Despite protests, no one in the higher financial and political end of things was going to listen to a bunch of hippies and their customers.
The parking lot opened on Aug. 11, 1978. It still stands today as a monolithic, uninteresting structure across from the Municipal Building on Canyon.

The Carnival died a premature death that year, its loyal keepers spreading to the four winds and other adventures. Surprisingly, many of the Carnies are still in touch with each other more than 30 years later. There is a website devoted to the memory of the Carnival Cafe with more than 50 members: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/carnivalcafe.

The passing of the Carnival Cafe signified the passing of an era in Boulder. Boulder changed from being a simple Western town to one that had a more metropolitan outlook and an upscale feel.

Similar establishments soon met a similar demise. The popular Green Mountain Granary, one of the first real natural food stores in Boulder, was razed to make space for the Senior Citizens Center. Hanna Kroeger’s New Age Foods kept making wonderful, inexpensive nutritious meals into the ’80s, until the success of the Pearl Street Mall brought in higher-stakes businesses with big budgets that drove out most of the local stores.

It is sad that the Carnival Cafe is so forgotten today. It was truly a unique institution and one that left a big imprint on the city’s culture and consciousness during its short existence. It offered a cherished look at life as a dance waiting to be danced and a song waiting to be sung. It showed to those who experienced it that amongst all of one’s daily work and strife, you need to not just stop and smell the flowers along the way, but lay among them and be one yourself.

This article was written with help from the following individuals and institutions: Carnegie Library, the written documents of Marc Weiss, Steven Miles and Stephen Gassaway. Information was also gathered from Larry Dixon, Karen Kaushansky, Richard Convertito, Cedar Geiger, Doe Gregoire, Mark Gunther, Barbralu Fried and Perry Sprout.

Life is a carnival-The Band

Big Yellow Taxi - Joni Mitchell

Where Grass Entered the Picture

Seems not many of the writers so far want to delve into the subject of illicit drug use, particularly, the smoking of marijuana. Well, we’re all adults here, and so much time has passed that talking about it now seems as natural as pulling on those old blue jeans and tie-dyed t-shirts.

My very first toke on a joint was when I was the ripe old age of 15. I had a childhood friend who lived in Florida. I was living in Pittsburgh at the time, but spent summers at my uncle’s house in Hallandale, Florida. I spent most of my days with my aunt helping her--usually under protest--clean the house and tidying up while my uncle and cousins, who were a few years older than me, went out into the working world.

I remember one day my aunt and I were visiting a family friend, and I became bored. I asked my aunt if I could walk over to my old friend Karen’s house and hang out with her for awhile. I grew up next door to Karen, and we were the best of friends until I eventually moved away after fifth grade.

My aunt agreed to let me go, and off I went. It was a long, hot walk, but well worth getting away from two gossipy women sipping lemonade and talking about things I had absolutely no interest in.

It was late morning, and I got to Karen’s just as she was getting ready to go run some errands. She had her driver’s license, something I wouldn’t get for another couple of years, and she had a cute little VW bug. I know, so cliché, but honestly, she did, and she asked if I’d like to ride along.

“You bet I would!” I hurriedly answered. So, errands weren’t like the coolest thing to do, but having a friend who drove when you were still yearning to, well, that was close enough to the real thing for me.

Karen was cute, really cute, surfer Florida girl cute. She had long wavy blonde hair, a perpetual tan, and a perfect body. I was more curvy than Karen. She could wear the gypsy skirt, peasant blouse look well, I couldn’t. But I looked alright in a pair of shorts and sleeveless blouse, and while my hair was dark, long and wavy, not at all looking like the surfer Florida girl, I did have plenty of freckles.

Together, we were ok to look at and driving around town, well, we got some honks and some stares and I remember feeling so much freedom that day. No worries, just riding around town, hitting the store, the bank, doing odds and ends, grown up stuff when I hadn’t really realized that, in fact, it was about time I started acting more grown up.

When we were on our way home, Karen asked, “Have you ever smoked a joint before?” I wanted to act all cool and say yeah, but truth is, I never had, and since Karen and I went way back, she’d know I was lying anyways, so I told the truth. She pulled out a joint.

“Well, now you can see what it’s all about,” she told me, and she lit it up. My first drag on it was awful, I remember. The smoke really hurt my lungs. I had already tried cigarettes, but I wasn’t anything near being a smoker.

We passed the joint between us as she maneuvered in and out of traffic, and me? I kept my eyes out for the cops. I kept waiting for something magical to happen but the most I can honestly say I felt was maybe a bit happier, but high like I’d heard about from all the propaganda being thrown at us? No. I wasn’t high. I “wanted” to get high, to honestly feel how Karen was feeling, but never really did. I envied her. She had a car, she was cute as hell, had a boyfriend already, was entrenched in the hippie lifestyle, and she was high. I was none of those things.

Karen told me it was ok, my not feeling high right off the bat, that it happened to lots of people the first time cause they didn’t know what to expect. We got back to her house, and it was time for me to start walking back home to my uncle’s house. She told me to wait a minute, went into the house and came back out with a small joint.

“Here, for later. Maybe the second time will be better for you.”

It was at that precise moment I went from being an innocent onlooker to a part of the hippie generation. I was officially on the road to turning on, tuning in, and dropping out. I stuck the joint in my bra (Karen said it was the best place to hide it), and I set off toward my uncle’s house.

Maybe I did feel something after all. I sure as hell wasn’t the same girl that had made the trip to Karen’s house a few hours earlier. I had matured somehow. I had become one of “them.” The cool people. I never felt guilty, never felt like I was doing anything remotely wrong, and I never, ever wanted to look back.

Another Great Beatles Moment - Part I

by John Henrichs

Growing up in the 1960’s, it was difficult to find a radio station that wasn’t playing something by the Beatles. The “British Invasion” had come to the U.S. The airwaves were awash with the sound.

Living in a small town, and living in a relatively poor family, my siblings and I didn’t have new-fangled transistor radios like many of our peers. Instead, we had early 1950’s tube radios, many of which we had to rebuild to make them work.

Often times when I heard that my sister had a song on her radio that I wanted to hear, I had to run to my room and turn on my radio to listen to it. Needless to say, tube radios took forever to “warm up.” Usually, I would catch only the last few bars of the song. Of course I couldn’t simply listen to my sister’s radio in her room. We were not unlike most brothers and sisters that hated each other. My sister “Eggbert” was the worst! I have no idea where that name came from, but she wears it to this day. So I could hardly listen to her radio when I had one of my own.

Later, when I got a job, the hours were awful. As a result, I never got to actually see the Beatles perform. At least I got to follow the band through newspaper accounts until they broke up.

At the time, a girl I was dating told me she had tickets to the Paul McCartney and Wings concert. I was going to see at least one of the Beatles! It turns out she had somehow gotten tickets in the eighth row. I never did ask how she got them.

It was probably the best produced concert I had ever attended, the sound and theatrics were simply mind-blowing. But the one thing that got to me during the song, “Live and Let Die,” with the flash pots exploding and lights flashing on the stage, was the look of sheer joy on Paul McCartney’s face. He seemed to be having the time of his life.

I swear he looked out over the audience and our eyes connected. I felt his sheer exuberance. His smile lit up the whole arena, as he played and sang. I thought to myself that this indeed was nirvana. Someday, I wanted to follow suit, start my own band, and live like a rock star!

Sadly, work got the best of me, and after 38 years on the job, I can hardly get my hand around the neck of a guitar. But that moment remains fresh in my mind. Every time I hear that song, my mind goes back to that night long ago. There was a lesson to be learned—Do what you love, be who you want to be. Life is too short not to.

A Late Bloomer, but Nonetheless a True Flower Child

By: Carol Henrichs

Rarely am I moved by 'new' music. When I want to crank up the music, I generally rely on the 'oldies,' the songs that hold special, even intimate memories for me. I love how music, especially songs from our 'prime,' can conjure up thoughts and feelings in such a way as to seemingly transport us back to another time.

One particular artist that completely transforms me and even has the power to move me to tears is John Denver. Whenever one of his songs plays on the radio, I stop what I’m doing so I can listen and even sing along. John Denver’s music has always held a special place in my heart. I particularly love the lyrics of his song “Rhymes and Reasons.”

“The children and the flowers are my sisters and my brothers. Their laughter and their loveliness would clear a cloudy day,...” The words to this song harkens back to my own philosophy of life.

Though “Rhymes and Reasons” wasn’t one of his most popular songs, and it is rarely played on the radio, it remains my favorite. “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” also holds special meaning for me because it had been my favorite song. I lived in a small town when it was popular and drove the country roads regularly. It was the song I always asked for in venues where live bands performed requests.

I was also particularly fond of “Rocky Mountain High,” “Sunshine on My Shoulder,” and another favorite, “Poems, Prayers, and Promises.” These can still be heard now and then on the radio. These and others were from John Denver’s Greatest Hits album, released in 1973, a tumultuous time in my life. 

Music was soothing to the soul and spirit. John Denver’s music allowed me to connect to a place deep within my heart. John Denver’s music sustained me for a very long time. The concepts behind the words he sang and the feelings he expressed were powerful and timeless. I practically wore out that CD, which I still play at times.

But the one particular memory that I hold dear occurred more than ten years later. I used to keep that CD in the car. When I got into the car, instead of turning on the radio, I turned on the CD player. John Denver’s voice was calming, casual, and familiar. It got to be familiar with my young song, Chris too. Whenever we would ride around on our way to picnics, chores, or out to lunch, we always did it to the sound of John Denver. I played other music too, but this was the old standby.

One day when we got into the car, Chris said, "Mommy, I love it when you sing." That of course came from my sweet, innocent four-year old who obviously hadn't developed maturity in his auditory organs yet. He is a grown man today and knows darn well that I can't sing a lick. I was never fooled by my own inability to carry a tune either. But that never stopped me. I have been singing along with my favorite tunes all my life. I guess this proves that even if you don't possess musical talent, you can still reap the benefit of musical magic.

When John Denver died, I felt like I lost a close, personal friend, probably not unlike so many other people who listened and felt a special connection to his music. I even saw him in concert once, with a dear friend. It was a sensational experience, a wonderful memory that I’m grateful to have and to hold onto. His music has endured. Even today, so many years later, for me, his music remains a powerful force.

There were the Beatles and Then, There were the Beatles

DECEMBER, 26 1963.

That was when my new clock radio went off unexpectedly. It was the exact moment that would change the course of my life. The new Christmas present that I had received the day before was not yet under my command, and it began blasting music in the middle of the Pennsylvania night. The rude awakening had me up and running to the radio before I was fully awake. I quickly turned down the volume and stood there in a sleep deprived stupor, staring out of the window at the flashing lights of the Naval Air Station far in the distance.

As I was about to turn the radio off, the D.J. said the most unlikely thing, "Here's a new record by a Rock and Roll band from England." At 13 years of age I was skeptical that any white person could play R&R, let alone a person from England. I asked myself, "What could people from England possibly know about R&R?" I was about to find out! A moment later I heard the distinctive voice of Paul McCartney, "One Two, Three, Fah!" My heart went Voom as I heard the powerful driving guitar sound of "I Saw Her Standing There!" Back to the sound of the basics; guitar, bass and drums. This was not the overproduced 'wall of sound' that had been dominating the airwaves. Youth culture had reinvented itself, as it would time and time again.

The next morning our family loaded into the Country Squire station wagon for our bi-annual road trip to the state of New Hampshire. We traveled two lane black top for the next five hundred miles. Every time we passed through a small town in New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont I would reach over from the back seat to take control of the radio dial in an effort to locate this new sound. Normally my parents would have forbidden it, but it was already apparent that I was obsessed. Somewhere in the pine forests of New England I found it. The DJ's voice came booming out, "here's that new song by the Beatles you been calling about!" But to my surprise, it was not what I expected, It was the raw sound of John Lennon, I Want To' Hold Your Hand" The close harmony refrain of "I can’t hide, I can't hide", would haunt me for many years to come.

When we arrived in New Hampshire at the end of the day, I asked my cousin if he had heard the new band. He said, yes, but to my surprise he said, the song he heard was called, "She Loves You."

In the course of the next few days I heard, Please, Please Me, Twist and Shout, Love Me Do, P.S.I Love You ,and countless others, everyone a gem. It wasn't just good R&R, it was a cultural revolution. I began combing my hair differently, even though I had never seen a picture of them. It was a pivotal moment, not only for me, but for a generation. A full scale British Invasion was taking place. In the next few months The Rolling stones, The Dave Clark Five, The Animals, the Kinks, The Yardbirds, and many other English bands would take over the American airwaves. Youth culture had broadened its perspective and would never look back. I had found the soundtrack to my life, and a new way of seeing the world.

Now Fifty years later I have the complete works of The Beatles on my computer and I'm listening to it while I type this story.

Jackson.Ahern
Twin Falls, Idaho
February 17, 2013

You Can't Do That - Beatles

Ed note: Here is the first of many Beatles stories.

By Nancy Knipe

This is a story about Beatle songs and what they will drive one to do. Specifically I remember most of the music from the Beatles’ Second Album, especially “You Can’t Do That,” with Harrison’s 12-string guitar.

I’m a nice kid, now a nice, old kid. Never really got into trouble for some odd reason and was always doing the right thing. I didn’t grow up with much, and when my best friend, Janet, bought me a ticket to the Beatles’ concert at Crosley Field in Cincinnati, Ohio, I thought I would die. The year was 1966. 

We arrived in Cincinnati, 5 girls, 4 of them with irons for their hair, and stayed in a well-established, some say questionable, hotel in the city. The day we arrived we all sat down to write Western Union Telegrams, which we promptly sent off to the only hotel in Cincinnati the Beatles were likely to stay in: the elegant Vernon Manor.

Then we all dressed in our finest shorts and blouses, all new of course, and taxied over to the hotel. That’s where we split up. Janet and I, still friends to this day, stayed together. We walked the perimeter of the hotel trying to decide the best entry point. Our other friends just walked into the lobby along with every other wobble-kneed teenager. 

Janet and I found a floor of windows close to the ground on a quiet side of the building.

We tried each window until we found one that would open. What luck! We slid the gargantuon thing slowly open and kept watch while each of us slid clumsily inside. 

What we climbed into was a totally dark, dusty holding area above the kitchen for old chairs and other furniture. We could look down through heavy chicken-type wire and see people working in the kitchen. We were careful not to knock things around and give ourselves up. But with no way to move beyond the furniture, we had to back out of the window and reassess our situation.

By now, of course, we were covered in black dirt. I still remember what I wore: beige shorts and a bright red polyester sleeveless turtleneck.  I thought I was hot. Now I was dirty and not really all that hot.

We decided maybe the front entrance would be more accessible, so we entered the huge lobby full of girls with board-straight hair and cute outfits. There were lights and cameras and news people interviewing all the enthusiastic fans. Janet and I were looking for bigger fish. 

We slid down a corridor and found the stairs. Once in the stairwell, we ran for our lives up to the third floor where we stopped, opened the door, decided it was too quiet, and shot up another two floors. We entered the hotel corridor on the fifth floor in front of a huge window which overlooked the pool. Two suited men came from nowhere and pushed the elevator button. 

“Oh look,” I pretended, “there’s Mrs. Schneider and her daughter,” as though we were guests. 

“Oh, and Sheila,” Janet chimed in. 

The elevator bell dinged, the doors opened, and one of the men turned to us and said, “Let’s go girls.” We rode down to the lobby with five suited men, three of them English.

Not the Beatles, but quite possibly Brian Epstein and who knows who else. 

We were promptly thrown out of the hotel. Later we learned that the Beatles had taken all of the third floor, and the fifth floor was being used by their managers. So close, yet so far away.

You know you can’t do that.

Love at the Armadillo World HQ

By Sheryl Arbuckle Green

On one of the first dates with my husband, we went to the Armadillo beer garden to hear Uncle Walt's Band.

Walter Hyatt, Champ Hood, and David Ball were three young musicians whose harmony was so natural and perfect it gave me chill bumps. I contacted Warren Hood, Champ Hood’s son, on Facebook a while ago and told him his dad was responsible for my two sons.

"Wait! Let me explain, Warren. My husband and I have been married for nearly thirty years and still listen to 'Ruby' and 'Aloha'. Your dad's music is a landmark in my life," I told him.

Warren did his dad proud. When I see him perform, I think of that night at Armadillo; a pitcher of cold Lone Star beer, nachos with jalapenos piled high, and falling in love.