Late Tuesday night, Longmont City Council voted to purchase the former YMCA, paving the way for a new recreation center to reopen in the Colorado city.

Longmont will pay $4.5 million for the former YMCA and estimates another $8 million in necessary repairs. This follows months of public debate over its future.

Five months after the Northern Colorado YMCA announced it would close its Longmont branch, the building is one step closer to welcoming the community back.

The decision follows months of negotiations and hundreds of public comments from residents who urged the city to save what many described as a cornerstone of the community.

For Maryam Motahari, the vote was deeply personal.

"I have lots of memories. I have fun memories and I have sad memories," Motahari said of the Lashley Street building.

Motahari spent 19 years at the Longmont YMCA as both a member and fitness instructor.

"I raised my family here. I would come and go like five times a week, teaching classes... and I planned on teaching here until I was like 75 years old," she said.

When the YMCA announced in February that it would close the Longmont branch at the end of the month, Motahari lost more than her workplace.

"A lot of tears, a lot of crying, and I still haven't found a home," she said.

As she searches for that new home, Motahari has continued leading many of her former YMCA regulars through free weekly fitness classes at a local park.

"If anyone were to open these doors, if anyone is qualified to do it, is the city of Longmont," she said.

Although the city has approved purchasing the building, officials say reopening it will take time.

The city plans to spend their current $8.4 million in existing recreation funds to pay for and repair the building. Officials estimate the aging facility will also require approximately $8 million in repairs before it can fully reopen. The city hopes to raise remaining dollars for repairs through memberships.

The building remains open for YMCA childcare and summer camp programming, but city leaders say broader recreation services could return after renovations are completed.

"I knew that people didn't want to see this asset go, but I didn't realize how passionate people were about maintaining that," Longmont Mayor Susie Hidalgo-Fahring said.

Hidalgo-Fahring said preserving the YMCA is about more than maintaining a building. Adding that this option is millions of dollars less expensive than constructing a new facility.

"The Y falls in a part of town where it's often unrepresented, so we need. I think that the stars aligned well for us to engage and be purposeful with acquiring this property and keeping the doors open," she said.

However at Tuesdays meeting, a few residents raised financial concerns. Some questioned whether Longmont should take on another aging recreation facility when another city-owned center is located nearby.

"Common sense says the city is not going to support two large aging pools that are less than a mile apart," Longmont resident Marilyn Maher said.

For Mothari, however, the cost is outweighed by what the YMCA has meant to thousands of people over the years.

"People are worth the money. The building needs repairs, but our community needs this. Our community needs a place to come together, and that's priceless," she said.

City officials hope to start repairs in six months and reopen the recreation complex in two years.

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History

Longmont has a serious pizza problem. Specifically, there is an unreasonable, borderline offensive concentration of outrageously good pizzerias crammed into a city of barely 100,000 people.

Sure, Denver can brag about Cart-Driver and Blue Pan. Boulder flexes Audrey Jane’s Pizza Garage, and Lakewood throws Pizzeria Leopold around like it’s a giant, spinning wheel of cartoon pizza dough. But in Longmont, three heavyweights — Rosalee’s Pizzeria, Urban Field Pizza and Market and Antonio’s Real New York Pizza — sit casually within a few blocks of each other.

A few blocks!

And while Longmont is always a sacred destination for crust purists, on Saturday, Sept. 5, it will become something else entirely. The downtown area, near the intersection of 4th Avenue and Kimbark Street, will host the inaugural Colorado Pizza Festival. (The state’s first-ever pizza fest, if you can believe it; something that feels like a historical oversight we’re finally correcting.)

More than 20 pizzerias from across the state will sling slices side-by-side, effectively turning downtown Longmont into an open-air cathedral of melted cheese.

The secret sauce to Longmont’s pizza reign? It isn’t shackled to a single pizza identity. It’s not locked into the rigid dogma of New York, Chicago or Detroit. No, Longmont has something much better. It has options — a distinct pizza ecosystem that collects the best flavors and styles from around the world and fires them up in a town where you can devour your square or triangular slice with an unobstructed, postcard view of Longs Peak in the background.

People who know pizza have taken notice. Rosalee’s ranked 14th on a best pizza in America list last year, the only Colorado shop to make the cut. Their New York-style-but-crispier pies are certainly deserving, built on a long cold-fermentation dough, piled with traditional toppings (read: no Thai chicken or mac and cheese here) and baked to perfection in a 625-degree electric oven. Urban Field, which does both Detroit and artisan round pizzas, earned fifth place in the world at the 2025 International Pizza Expo for its golden, lace-edged Detroit-style pies. The Washington Post called Antonio’s the best New York pizzeria in Colorado.

And 13-time World Pizza Champion Tony Gemignani (who will be judging Pizza Fest’s amateur competition) recently chose Longmont for a Colorado outpost of his Slice House eatery; he already has locations in Boulder and Loveland.

Which begs the question: how did this sleepy Front Range town become the epicenter for all things good pizza? Just ask the people building it. When Nick Swanson was scouting spots for his Urban Field Pizza and Market ahead of its 2022 opening, he said he toured 200 potential restaurants along the Front Range, from Fort Collins to Denver to Louisville.

“When we were looking for locations, we just loved the sense of community here,” Swanson said. “Longmont is such a tight-knit community. People who live in Longmont are so proud of the fact they’re from Longmont. It runs so deep here, so they support their own. They just show up.”

Especially in such a small town, you might expect the pizzerias to be fiercely territorial. Instead, they’re incredibly collaborative; Urban Field, Rosalee’s and Antonio’s recently teamed up to form Pizza With Purpose, the community-minded, philanthropic backbone of the Colorado Pizza Festival.

“When all the SNAP benefits were getting erased for people, some of us in the community started talking. What can we do to help? It took one meeting. The three of us sat down and brainstormed the idea: Let’s throw a pizza party. What better way to get people excited about raising money for food insecurity than throwing the ultimate pizza party?” Swanson said.

And so, on Saturday, Sept. 5 at least, Longmont will claim the official, undisputed crown as Colorado’s pizza capital when it hosts the inaugural Pizza Fest. Proceeds benefit hunger relief organizations across the state, including Slice Out Hunger, Longmont Food Rescue, Community Food Share and Colorado Friendship. All we, the pizza-loving public, have to do to help is show up and eat as many slices as the stretchiness of our stomach linings allow.

The heavy hitters on the Longmont pie scene will be there, of course, but so will Slice House by Tony Gemignani, Audrey Jane’s Pizza Garage, Joy Hill Pizza out of Denver, Boulder’s Barchetta, Pizzeria Leopold and at least 15 more.

They won’t merely show up with boxes of pizza, either. They’ll bring their dough and ingredients and bake fresh pies on-site, selling slices of cheese plus a specialty pizza with a rotating lineup of toppings. It’s a massive undertaking, turning Main Street into a blocks-wide pizza party. It’s also an invitation for the rest of the state to come on up and see what Longmont’s cooking.

“More than anything, I want people to come up and see what Longmont’s all about,” Swanson said. “It’ll be fun to get all these pizzerias together.”

Colorado Pizza Festival; Saturday, Sept. 5; 1-10 p.m., in downtown Longmont, $15 general admission + $3-4 per slice or $50 Golden Ticket; coloradopizzafestival.com.

Welcome to Nibbles, Boulder’s award-winning weekly food newsletter. Look for Nibbles every Tuesday in your inbox for a smorgasbord of Boulder County food and restaurant news, dining tips and cooking hacks.

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There may be more pizza joints in Denver than in Longmont, but Boulder’s booming next-door neighbor is making a strong case for becoming the pizza capital of Colorado. In this week’s Nibbles, we give you all the tasty details on the inaugural Colorado Pizza Festival on Saturday, Sept. 5. Plus: chile relleno satisfaction, a new Boulder cookbook, Bova’s Market’s return to the Hill and a pointed objection to pumpkin spice.

— John Lehndorff

Join us to celebrate the 2026 City of Boulder Climate Resilient Landscape Showcase! We are celebrating creative and inspiring landscapes in our community! View a gallery walk and enjoy light food and refreshments, which will be followed by a keynote speech and a presentation of awards to community members. Saturday, Sept. 12 • 6-8:30 p.m.

Independent pizza shops are always fiercely proud of their pies. Within a few blocks along Longmont’s Main Street, three pizzerias each claim to make the best pizza.

Earlier this year, competition didn’t stop Nick Swanson, co-owner of Urban Field Pizza & Market; James Ross of Rosalee’s Pizzeria; and Anthony DeSousa, owner of Antonio’s Real New York Pizza, from sitting down to talk about creating community through the Dolly Parton of American foods.

“It’s not that we’re not competitive, but we all have something different to offer within our pizza styles. Competition — it just makes us all get better,” Nick Swanson says.

Urban Field specializes in Detroit-style pizza. Rosalee’s follows the New Haven pie tradition, while Antonio’s draws on New York and New Jersey styles. The fans of each pizzeria are also highly opinionated on the topic.

These pizzerias formed Pizza With Purpose to build community and support organizations fighting food insecurity across Colorado.

“Originally, we had envisioned a small pizza festival — maybe five or six pizzerias, just something fun. We decided that this project should benefit a good cause,” Swanson says.

“We all have friends in the pizza business, so we started to call, and now we are expecting at least 25 pizzerias from across the state. When you’re trying to raise money to help fight food insecurity here in our backyard, it’s an easy thing to get behind,” he says. The need has gained urgency locally as SNAP benefits are being cut or reduced.

Organizers expect as many as 6,000 guests on Sept. 5 at the Colorado Pizza Festival in downtown Longmont, all eager to sample slices in diverse styles from more than 20 Colorado pizzerias.

The unprecedented gathering of talent includes local favorites such as Audrey Jane’s Pizza Garage, Abo’s Pizza, Barchetta, Ghost Box Pizza and Rock City Pie and Ice. Other participating pizzerias include Slice House by Tony Gemignani, GFL Pizza, Main Stage Brewing, CHAR Stone Fired Pizza, Infinitus Pie, Simply Pizza Truck & Catering, Joy Hill Pizza, Lina’s Pizza, Backyard Pizza, Postcard Pizza, Sexy Pizza, Pizzeria Leopold, Rock N Puck Pizza and Pala Nero Pizza.

“Every pizzeria has to do a cheese pie and a specialty pie. We won’t know what they’re going to do until the day of the event,” Swanson says.

“We’re getting gas deck ovens. That way everything’s going to be hot and fresh straight out of the ovens, not boxes,” Swanson says. The festival will offer 500 gluten-free doughs from Longmont’s Sweet Escape Pastries, distributed among participating pizzerias while supplies last.

The festivities will include live music and beverages from local wineries, distilleries and breweries. A competition for amateur pizza makers using Moxie Bread Co. flour and a wood-fired oven will be judged by pizza guru Tony Gemignani.

The festival’s $50 Golden Ticket, plus fees, includes unlimited pizza samples from 1 to 6 p.m. The $15 general admission ticket, plus fees, allows attendees to purchase slices individually. Children 12 and younger are admitted free. Tickets here.

This year’s proceeds will benefit Slice Out Hunger, Longmont Food Rescue, Community Food Share and Colorado Friendship.

Swanson says he was surprised to learn that the event would be Colorado’s first pizza festival, but says it makes sense for it to take place in Longmont.

“I think the biggest thing that I keep going back to is the sense of community in Longmont. People are so proud that they live in Longmont,” Swanson says.

The only downside to the event may be the sheer quantity of carbohydrates and calories one can consume while sampling pizza from more than 20 vendors in a single afternoon. Walking or biking to the festival may help, especially given the parking challenges. So may dancing to the live music between slices.

There is something about a chile relleno that makes me want to order it every time I see it on a Boulder menu. But not all rellenos are created equal. Some are little more than cheese-filled egg rolls.

When a serious jones for a good relleno struck recently, I made a beeline to NoBo to revisit , the longtime taqueria operated by Mexico-born Pepe and Veronica Diaz. Here, the chile relleno starts with one big, fresh poblano chile. The kitchen roasts it, fills it with melty cheese and seals it in a soft egg wrapper. Mine was smothered Christmas-style with green chile and red enchilada sauces plus crema. That substantial relleno, along with rice, porky beans, guacamole, pico de gallo and warm corn tortillas, made for a satisfying, affordable feast that hit the spot. I do wish Tierra y Fuego still served its fine family chicken mole. (Hint, hint.)

Boulder’s iconic moved from the Hill when its longtime home was redeveloped into the Moxy Boulder Hotel. Now, its location at 1100 28th St. will close Sept. 12 for renovations. Bova’s plans to return to the Hill at 1134 13th St., the former University Market site.

The forthcoming “A Bite of Boulder: Volume 2” cookbook from Savor Productions features home-friendly recipes from current restaurants such as Café Aion, Ginger Pig and Hapa Sushi, as well as recipes from legendary local favorites including John’s Restaurant, The Med and Mataam Fez. Preorder the cookbook here.

Opening

Boulder’s Dagabi Cucina has opened at 11410 Via Varra in Broomfield.

Closing

has closed in Lafayette.

Coming Attraction

, 725 Harvest Moon Drive, Longmont, will hold its grand opening Sept. 12.

The agrivoltaic operation at Longmont’s Jack’s Solar Garden was recently profiled in The Guardian. Schedule a public tour of Jack’s Solar Garden here.

Colorado State University researchers are also testing whether saffron, the world’s most expensive spice, can thrive beneath photovoltaic panels in Colorado.

Plan ahead: Boulder’s Greek food festival runs Sept. 11-13 at Sts. Peter & Paul Greek Orthodox Church. The annual is Sept. 19 in Arvada and features a barbecue side-dish competition.

Don’t miss the September edition of Kitchen Table Talk, KGNU’s monthly food talk show co-hosted by John Lehndorff and chef Daniel Asher. Guests will include Philippa Clark, owner of Moxie Bread Co., and Deb Britton of Dolly Mama’s Farmstead Goat Cheese, appearing before a live studio audience. Tune in from 8:30 to 9:30 a.m. Sept. 3 on 88.5 FM or stream at kgnu.org. Listen to podcasts here.

(Get your upcoming food event, festival or class listed free on Boulder Reporting Lab .)

We are in the few precious weeks each year when local tomatoes are abundant. You could turn the crop into another batch of sauce, but this week the Boulder County Farmers Markets shares a fun recipe for transforming cherry, grape and plum tomatoes into “candy” you’ll be happy to serve through the holidays.

Get the recipe here.

Look for cherry tomatoes and other freshly picked produce at one of Boulder County’s many roadside farm stands. Check out Boulder Reporting Lab’s guide.

“It’s like a demonic possession, pumpkin spice everything; pumpkin spice flavored shoes, pumpkin spice BLT’s. The kids are all going back to their pumpkin spiced schools and it’s two and a half weeks until Labor Day. This is just so wrong.” — Anne Lamott

Check out recent editions of Nibbles:

???? Artisan cheesemaking returns to Boulder County at Dolly Mama’s

???? Meet the family behind 25 years of Il Pastaio in Boulder

???? Inside Boulder’s bone broth boom + new bagels and tomato pie

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