Spinelli's Team Opening Third Market on the Anschutz Campus

Cecelia Jones and husband Jake Riederer are longtime restaurant-industry vets. But last year, the two turned their focus to a new passion: neighborhood markets.

Jones was working at Spinelli's, which has been a staple in Park Hill since 1994, when owner John Moutzouris offered the couple the opportunity to buy into the business. In December, the partners debuted their second market; they took over a shop in Congress Park, revamped it and added a deli that dishes out sandwiches — including one of the best French dips in town.

"Grocery stores like this are community builders. ... You still make the same connection you did in the restaurant, but it's so much more wholesome," Jones told Westword just before the Congress Park market opened.

"[Jake and Cecelia] are just so passionate about taking existing spaces and creating that community around it," says Stephanie Joslin, director of communications for AIR Communities, which owns 21 Fitzsimons and the Fremont, two apartment communities located at the heart of the Anschutz Medical Campus. The Fremont is where the Spinelli's team will debut a third market this spring — it's one of four new businesses opening at the AIR Communities, along with Milieu Fermentation (which is taking over the former Ursula Brewing space), Sable and Siren Hair Co. and Wow Scrubs. "Our intentions were always to have a market in there, and Spinelli's was just a perfect fit," Joslin says.

This project will also have the name Spinelli's and, like the other two markets, will offer grocery essentials, specialty items, ready-to-heat meals and sandwiches.

One big difference is that this is a brand-new space instead of an existing market. The area is short on grocery stores, though, and being able to provide access to fresh, healthy options in a food desert is what sparked Jones and Riederer's interest in getting into the grocery business in the first place.

The new Spinelli's will "meet the needs of the community there without people having to go to a different area of the city," Joslin notes. "We're really looking forward to this partnership."