The colliding of worlds always creates some interesting mixtures and ideas. Adam Stepan, the owner/operator of the Colorado Springs speakeasy The Fifty-Niner, has had many lives as the owner of a Design/Build firm (focused on residential development and historic preservation) as well as a professional card game player. He mixes all those forms of expression into his new outlay: A speakeasy attached to a physical game store where people can gather, play games and enjoy food and drink in a comfortable setting.
In his earlier years, Stepan played and sold a game called Magic: The Gathering for a Living. “I started playing it when I was in high school in 1993 when the game came out so I’ve been playing it since inception, nearly 30 years.”
Stepan very quickly took to the game, met some guys who were going to college in the town he lived in, and hooked a ride with them attending all the pro tour circuit events for the game. He started playing real competitively, then began selling the cards per se (which is part of that marketplace). In the late ‘90s through the advent of the Internet, he started moving that business online and did that for the better part of a decade before transitioning while still retaining its vast knowledge and community base.
Melding Two Worlds
He explains that this experience and knowledge is a big part of the front-of-house game store function, which helps push the revenue pie and allows The Fifty-Niner to exist. “We obviously sell [a lot] of board games, a ton of generic card games. You can go to Barnes & Noble and get your Catan and Arkham Horror and thematic Monopoly games or whatever. But we have 16 versions of Catan, whether it’s an expansion or an alternate version. We have 15 versions of Ticket to Ride.”
Stepan says they are probably the largest game store in the state of Colorado per revenue, but he admits it looks like a hole in the wall. “No one would ever suspect. But underneath the bar and restaurant, there’s a whole entire warehouse.”
The Fifty-Niner is an extension of Stepan’s idea of a comfortable place where people can come to play games or just hang out but with a craft approach to it. Stepan also loves the aspect of history and architecture, which was part of his second life when he owned a design firm in Austin, Texas.
He says The Fifty-Niner is a nod to the origination of Colorado and specifically the street the game store and speakeasy is located on. “So directly across from this building is the original capital of Colorado that was erected in 1859. Colorado Springs was established that year as well as kind of a spin-off supply point for gold miners that had come here for the Pike’s Peak rush in 1859 from California. They were called the Fifty-Niners. So this idea was all correlated to the history of the street, the history of the city, and how this whole state originated.”
Menu Influenced by History and a Bit of Magic
Half of the menu at The Fifty-Niner is a nod to that history. Stepan’s menu features sandwiches such as the Gold Digger Panini and The Gold Miner’s Daughter – each with its own flavors as well as a Fifty-Niner cocktail, which mixes bourbon and other intrinsic ingredients. “And then the other half of the menu is sort of a game store geek vibe, right? We’ve got like a Harry Potter drink and a couple of off-menu items that are tributes to Magic.”
Stepan joke, “I’m not a pioneer here but I definitely bring a lot of flavors to people that they otherwise wouldn’t have.” His approach to the business overall is that he wanted a different kind of game store. Game stores, he says, are a lot about community. “But typically, when I was in Austin, my buddies and I would want to go play games and would want to eat some good food and drink some good drinks.”
But those two worlds never existed in the same place. “There was never that ‘thing. ‘ You could go to a restaurant and get good food and drinks. But the lighting was bad, and they’d be like, ‘Why in the hell are you here for two hours playing a game?’ And then you go to a game store, and there’s no food, no drink, just lifetime plastic tables. It’s uncomfortable.”
He explains though, at the same time, he didn’t want this place he created to be “like when you go to Six Flags and you eat a $15 hamburger that’s mediocre at best because you’re a captive audience.” While his price point is not inexpensive per se, the quality of his approach creates that balance and that comfortable space along with a sense of history.
New Approaches to Age-Old Process
“I’ve got a clarified whiskey that takes 48 hours to make in-house. And it’s a flavor that nobody’s ever had. So it’s a novelty, too. People are like ‘How am I drinking straight Scotch right now without feeling a burn ?’ Again it ties in with history because you can tell them the story about how Benjamin Franklin sat there drinking clarified spirits because the spirits were so harsh that they had to milk wash them to take the edge off.”
Right now, Stepan is working on a clarified spirit version of peanut butter for a new drink, so he continues to push creativity with a sense of chemistry as well.
Stepan admits, “I’m an Aries and I’m very fiery. I get a lot of ideas coming out of my brain at every moment of the day. I definitely think about things a lot. But I don’t overthink things by a long shot.” The pandemic allowed him to overthink all the design and menu for The Fifty-Niner in a positive way.
“I spent a better part of a year planning the menu, planning the layouts. And I think that as a whole resulted in a really intentional delivery of what ended up happening.” For example, he explains that his pairings for their charcuterie boards are thought out and very intentional, so everything goes together. “Whether it is the cheese or the meat and whether I mix it with a veggie or a membrillo or whatever, it’s all perfectly paired.”
He says people compliment the boards all the time. “People have said that it’s the best charcuterie they’ve ever had in their life. That’s more than I could ever expect or hope for, right?”
Many Things for Many People
The Fifty-Niner, in that way, can be many things to many people. “When I told my employees, my first hires before we had opened [what this place is], it can be really hard to visualize the concept. I told them, ‘Imagine a game store where you would take the first date. That’s what this is.”
And it’s become everywhere in between. “You asked about demographics. The demographic is huge.”
Stepan says that they’ve had first dates. “We’ve had anniversaries. We’ve had first anniversaries. We’ve had 13th anniversaries. We’ve had bachelor parties. We’ve had bachelorette parties. Everywhere in between”
He says Mother’s Day Weekend last year was sort of the epitome of how wide their demographic was. “We had a 20-top and on the low end, the age was probably 18 years old, on the high end, probably 82 years old and everywhere in between, right. And they’re all laughing, having a great time and playing games.”
