Now open: Hash

When Heather Haupman took over La Crema Cafeteria, a bare-bones coffee shop on 44th and Zuni, she was convinced the Sunnyside neighborhood needed a more upscale coffee and breakfast joint. So she remodeled the space, gave it a sunnier feel, and created Hash, which, in addition to Novo coffee and a slew of morning meal options, also serves scratch-baked pastries and fresh juices.

Her grand opening this weekend proved her instinct was right: “We had a line out the door,” she says. “People were really looking for something like this.”

Haupman isn’t a stranger to the coffee-shop business. She had a cafe on 32nd and Lowell fourteen years ago. When she closed that down, she went into catering, and her Arvada-based company, Citrus Catering, has cooked for A-listers: Her catering truck is currently serving a movie set in California, and when it returns, she’ll be cooking for Sheryl Crow.

She’ll continue to run that operation while she builds Hash, where she says she’d like to eventually add a garden and composting, educating the neighborhood on sustainability in the process. She might add lunch at that point, too.

For now, though, she’s doing a breakfast menu that includes breakfast tacos, macadamia nut French toast, crepes and four different kinds of hash, as well as a pastry case filled with croissants, eclairs and cinnamon rolls.

Hash is open Tuesday through Sunday from 7 a.m. until 2 p.m.

Follow @CafeWestword on Twitter