On the weekend of June 18 through 20, a wood-fired pizza oven came alive on the patio at 121 2nd Avenue for the first time in two years. The kitchen sent out wood-fired pizza, polenta, chicken parmigiana, and pork scallopine piccata with grilled asparagus. The restaurant, Taverna Laudisio, was running what its 85-year-old chef called a closed opening: a limited menu, open weekends for a couple of hours a day. A note about a fuller opening date sat posted on the menu by the front door, though the chef himself didn't seem to be treating it as the main event.
That quiet approach is worth noticing, because the building itself has never done quiet well. This address has been feeding people in Niwot for more than a century, and the way it just changed hands again tells you something about how this town actually works that a straightforward "new restaurant opens" headline would miss entirely.
A Building That Keeps Coming Back to Food
Before it was anything else, 121 2nd Avenue was a grocery store called the White House, opened in 1914 by Reverend William Taylor. Decades later it became Rev Taylor's Country Restaurant, a fixture from 1984 to 2000, with a separately owned tea house running upstairs at the same time. In 2016, Nick Mastronardi bought the property and opened 1914 House, a contemporary American restaurant that ran for eight years before closing in 2024 because of financial constraints. The building sat empty for two years after that, one of the more visible vacancies on a stretch of 2nd Avenue that residents are used to seeing full.
Mastronardi never sold. He leased the space to the Laudisio family instead, with an option for them to buy, and in one detail that mattered more than it might sound, he kept the building's liquor license active the entire time it sat vacant, which let the transition to Taverna Laudisio happen without the usual delay a new operator would face applying from scratch.
That is not how most restaurant turnovers work. Most involve a new build-out, a new license, a new staff learning a new kitchen. This one didn't need any of that, and the reason gets at something more interesting than a change in ownership.
The Same Kitchen, Under a Familiar Name
Antonio Laudisio opened Laudisio Ristorante Italiano in Boulder in 1989 with his brothers Raimondo and Leonardo, introducing generations of Boulder County diners to regional Italian cooking and picking up repeated votes as the best Italian restaurant in both Boulder and Denver before it closed in 2013. He followed it with The Med, another Boulder favorite that has also since closed. At 85, he wasn't planning to open anything else. Then Niwot happened.
"At the age of 85, I wasn't planning to open another place. I'm going to do this with my son and grandson, three generations. It won't be a fancy place, casual like The Med," Laudisio told a Boulder food newsletter this spring.
The executive chef taking the lead in the kitchen is Justin Hirshfield, and his path back to 121 2nd Avenue is the detail that makes this feel less like a new restaurant and more like a restaurant returning to its own history. Hirshfield started as a 16-year-old at the original Laudisio's, worked his way up through a long run at both Niwot Market and 1914 House, and is now back in the exact building where he once ran the kitchen, this time under the chef who first hired him.
"The original Ristorante Laudisio is where I got my start as a chef," Hirshfield said. "Antonio took a chance on me when I was 16 years old and he and his chefs showed me the ropes. This is a full circle moment for me!"
Several other members of the 1914 House staff, including the bar manager and multiple servers, came back too. So when longtime regulars walk in expecting a stranger's restaurant, what they're actually getting is largely the same team, in the same room, cooking under a name that traces back to 1989.
Three Kitchens, Two Blocks, No Coincidence
Here's the part that a simple opening announcement leaves out entirely. Taverna Laudisio isn't the only Italian kitchen on this stretch of downtown, and it isn't even the newest one on the block. Cimmini's has been serving 300 2nd Avenue since 2021. Fortezza Ristorante, a Northern Italian steakhouse with an extensive wine cellar, opened at 7916 Niwot Road in 2025. Add Taverna Laudisio in 2026 and Niwot's small downtown now supports three distinct Italian restaurants within a short walk of each other, each aimed at a different kind of night out.
Deborah Fowler, president of the Niwot Business Association, put it plainly when asked about the new arrival: "We've got some great Italian options here, all different price points, all different types of food. So, we're covering the whole of Italy in one town."
That's not the kind of density you get by accident in a town this size. A steakhouse with a serious wine list, a longstanding neighborhood Italian spot, and now a family taverna built around affordable, comforting plates are each betting that there's enough appetite in Niwot to support a genuinely different price point and mood on the same two blocks. For a town people still sometimes describe as a sleepy stop between Boulder and Longmont, that's a fairly direct vote of confidence from three separate operators who all did their homework before signing a lease.
How This Fits Into a Niwot Week
None of this happens in isolation from the rest of the summer calendar. Niwot's free summer concert series, Rock & Rails, runs every Thursday night from June through August in Whistle Stop Park and has picked up the Governor's Award for Downtown Excellence for Best Promotional Event along the way. The House Blend Band's 2nd Avenue Summer Concert Series adds another regular night to the mix, running its own set of dates through the season. Slot a new restaurant with weekend evening hours into that lineup and a Niwot week starts to look genuinely programmed, in the good sense: something happening most nights within a few blocks of home.
Niwot Market's Friday Night Dinners follow their own version of this pattern, and the mechanics catch newer neighbors off guard more often than you'd expect. The Reservation Request Form for each dinner opens at noon exactly two weeks before the date, reservations are handled strictly first come, first served, and dinners have a track record of filling up fast with limited room for large parties. If you're used to booking a table the week of, or even a few days out, this is the one Niwot tradition that punishes procrastination. Check the Niwot Market events page on the Friday two weeks out, not the week of.
What to Expect Before You Go
Taverna Laudisio's first weeks in June were intentionally limited. The team described the launch as a closed opening with a small menu and short weekend hours, a deliberate choice rather than a soft-launch stumble. Two months in, hours have likely expanded, but the restaurant's own site still notes it will begin taking reservations soon rather than confirming full lunch and dinner service. The most reliable move is to check Taverna Laudisio's website or social channels directly before heading over, rather than assuming a walk-in table on a Tuesday night is a given.
That patience is worth extending. A restaurant built on returning staff, a returning building, and a returning family isn't trying to be the next big thing on opening weekend. It's trying to become the kind of place people go multiple times a week for years, the way the neighborhood clearly already treats Cimmini's and is starting to treat Fortezza. Give it a season.
What this all adds up to isn't really a story about pizza or polenta. It's a small, specific piece of evidence that Niwot's downtown keeps finding ways to fill its own gaps with people who already know the neighborhood, rather than outside operators guessing at what might work. That's a harder thing to manufacture than a new restaurant, and it's a better sign for anyone who plans on eating dinner here for a long time to come.
If you're already calling Niwot home and keeping an eye on what's changing in town, from the businesses moving in on 2nd Avenue to the questions shaping its future, Jane Kraemer tracks these shifts closely as part of living and working here. Reach out anytime you want a local read on what's happening in the neighborhood, no transaction required.
