No end to fast-casual appetite: Modmarket founders see synergies, not saturation.

• Author: Taylor, Mike
• Position: BUSINESS AS USUAL

DENVER IS ARGUABLY THE NATION'S epicenter of fast-casual restaurant innovation, with a homegrown roster that includes Chipotle, Noodles b Company, Garbanzo Mediterranean Grill, Qdoba, Tokyo Joe's, Quiznos and Smashburger, to name a few.

Anthony Pigliacampo and Rob McColgan sized up the Front Range landscape and didn't see saturation; they saw a market where consumers were already familiar with--and receptive to--the fast-casual formula of better-quality food at higher price points and a finer dine-in atmosphere than fast food venues offer. So the duo opened the first Modmarket in Boulder in 2009.

Less than five years later, Modmarket, touting a made-from-scratch "farm to table" menu and locally sourced ingredients (when available), has grown to seven Denver-area locations, with more openings slated for DIA and Dallas this summer. The two founders expect to increase the restaurant total to 12 by the end of this year.

Pigliacampo and McColgan, both 34, have been best friends since high school in Harrisburg, Pa. Both left successful careers to go into the restaurant business. Pigliacampo, a CU grad, previously ran his own mechanical design firm, and McColgan, a Notre Dame graduate, was working in private wealth management for Goldman Sachs in New York. Neither had worked in a restaurant before launching Modmarket, but they made up for it with painstaking research--specifically seeking out owners of failed restaurants willing to share hard-earned lessons--and then putting in 15-hour days over a nine-month stretch to get their first Modmarket up and running.

"That initial nine-month education was more valuable than our previous careers, because we learned every aspect of the restaurant, we learned all the pain points," Pigliacampo says.

Pigliacampo has his own ideas on why the Denver area has spawned so many fast-casual success stories--one being a health-conscious but time-constrained population willing to pay a little more for healthy food served quick.

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