Dorothy Timmons Hotchkiss left her native Nova Scotia when she was 9 years old, settling in Denver’s Park Hill neighborhood in 1964.
But she never really left her homeland behind. Every summer she and her family would head to the fishing community of Port Hood on Cape Breton Island, visiting old friends and getting a reminder of her roots in Canada’s Maritime Provinces.
Fast forward half a century. Hotchkiss has spent much of her adult life in the dining business, including stops at the erstwhile Colorado Mine Co. in Denver and in Evergreen, but she has also worked in the antiques trade.
Living in the Mayfair neighborhood with her teenage son, she toyed with the notion of opening her own place.
“I always wanted to open a coffee shop, but I had spent time in the antique business,” she says. Maybe she could do both. Hotchkiss was a big fan of good coffee, so why not offer customers some java while they browsed? And then a bit of Great White North brainstorming: She had a deft hand with pastries, thanks to her mother.
Why not open a combination antique store, coffee shop and cafe? Thus was born BluNozer Kaffe-Tiques, which opened Feb. 14 at 1475 Ivy St., just south of East Colfax Avenue. The Valentine’s Day launch seems appropriate in hindsight: Hotchkiss serves up lots of love with her fare.
“It’s comfort food,” says Hotchkiss, who runs the restaurant with help from her sister Della Timmons. “It brings people together. I was telling a friend how much I enjoy doing this and said it feels like I’m throwing a party every day. I like to make people smile.”
At the cafe’s doorway, a chalkboard with this announcement: “The road to success is paved with coffee.”
All the recipes are her mother’s: blond brownies with caramel icing, “chipmunk cake” topped with chocolate chips and chopped walnuts, sour cream coffee cake, French pistachio macaroons and a Cape Breton tea cake. “That’s ‘s recipe,” says Hotchkiss, giving props to the famed Cape Breton fiddler.
About the BluNozer name. “Bluenose” is a term that Nova Scotians have adopted for themselves. Some say it refers to the cold weather, others to the blue dye used on fishermen’s gloves that would rub off on their noses.
The Bluenose was also a famed Nova Scotia fishing and racing schooner of the 1920s and 1930s that became something of a national icon; its image has appeared on several Canadian postage stamps and the country’s dime.
BluNozer has to be one of the homiest cafes in Denver. The furniture is a mix of wooden booths and vintage tables. Walls are festooned with prints and photographs, and vintage tube-powered radios line shelves on the ceiling. A spinet piano is snugged into a far corner.
If a price tag dangles from an object, it’s for sale. Actually, if it doesn’t have a price tag, you could probably negotiate for it anyway, save for the equipment in the kitchen.
The kitchen is probably no bigger than the galley on the famed Bluenose schooner. There’s a prep counter and sinks for rinsing and washing dishes. A toaster oven sits side-by-side with a microwave.
Sandwiches are simple but tasty. On a recent morning she was offering a chicken salad sammie plus a special of rotisserie chicken with provolone, sprouts and stoneground mustard. You can also corral a Reuben or, for more rarefied tastes, a sandwich made with brie and fig jam.
Hotchkiss grew up with three sisters and four brothers, plus a number of foster children her mom took in. (Her mother still lives in the Park Hill house in which her kids grew up.) That might inform her never-met-a-stranger attitude.
When new customers walk in, she invariably asks their names. By the time they leave, it’s “Bye, Alicia, bye, Dave.”
The neighborhood seems to have cottoned to the shop. Three months in, regulars abound. Hotchkiss is thinking about expanding her Saturday hours.
And she also wants to do a cookbook. “What I’d like to do is have people in the neighborhood drop off a recipe,” she says. “I’d pick one a week and cook it. At the end of the year I’d compile those recipes into a cookbook and sell it to raise money for at-risk kids.”
A patio will soon go in alongside the restaurant, though Hotchkiss would love to put it on the roof. (Her attorney is balking at that one.)
“I love my customers and love cooking for them,” she says. “It’s just about bringing people together. I introduce everyone to each other and it becomes a small place where everyone can talk. It’s just a warm, loving thing.”
William Porter: 303-954-1877, wporter@ denverpost.com or twitter.com/williamporterdp
Chocolate Fudge Cake
This is a popular treat at Dorothy Timmons Hotchkiss’ BluNozer Kaffee-Tiques in Denver.
Ingredients
1 regular package Duncan Hines chocolate fudge cake mix
1 large package instant chocolate pudding
6 ounce package chocolate chip bits
1 cup sour cream
½ cup Mazola oil
4 eggs
½ cup warm water
2 tablespoons flour
Directions
Mix all the ingredients together, folding in chocolate bits last. Lightly grease a bundt pan and sprinkle it with a bit of flour. Bake in a 350 oven for 50 minutes. Let cool for 30 minutes and remove from pan. Dust with powdered sugar and garnish with blueberries or raspberries.
William Porter: 303-954-1877, wporter@denverpost.com or
