9 DECEMBER 28-JANUARY 3, 2023 westword.com WESTWORD | CONTENTS | LETTERS | NEWS | NIGHT+DAY | CULTURE | CAFE | MUSIC | city. The idea is pretty new even for Dede de Percin, the new CEO of Colorado Village Collaborative. The nonprofi t that de Percin heads is the state’s most experienced homelessness service provider when it comes to running micro-communities, but when she took the job, it was her fi rst gig dealing with getting people off the streets. “When I took this role, obviously we knew we were going to have a new mayor, but it was in March. We had no idea who the new mayor was going to be or any direction anything was going to go,” de Percin recalls. “And as it has emerged, we are the organiza- tion that has the most experience.” Colorado Village Collaborative was founded in 2017 by Cole Chandler, who is now Johnston’s senior adviser of homeless- ness resolution and is helping the city roll out its micro-community plan. He resigned from the organization in July 2022 to work with the state on homelessness issues, then moved on to his city post. From the start, CVC has focused on tiny home villages — communities of shed-like units — as well as safe outdoor spaces, which provide tents protected with fencing and 24/7 security. While CVC’s villages generally focus on serving smaller communities, the SOS sites serve larger populations. Micro- communities are a cross between the two, she says. “We think of the micro-communities as sort of a mashup between the tiny home vil- lages and the safe outdoor spaces,” de Percin says. “The structures look more like the tiny home villages, and the operations look more like the safe outdoor spaces.” Johnston had planned for ten micro- communities to house many of the 1,000 people he promised to get indoors in 2023, but the city is now down to one that will open before the end of the year. Early in 2024, CVC will open the largest micro-community planned so far, a site at 2301 South Santa Fe Drive that could one day hold up to 120 units. Overland neighbor- hood residents have kicked up a lot of dust in response to the plans, but de Percin is sure that those residents will come around. “We’ve learned a lot about this, particu- larly because we’ve had to move our sites so many times — every six months for a while until new regulations were put in,” she says. “So we’ve learned a lot about how we work with community. Our experience has been that once we’re in a community for a while, a lot of the concerns abate.” De Percin expects that CVC will “coach other organizations around what makes our site successful to other folks that are going to be launching micro-communities,” she says. Two other service providers are on tap to run micro-communities for the city: the Gathering Place and Bayaud Enterprises. The Gathering Place already has $10,000 set aside in its contract to hire CVC as a consultant to help at a micro-community in the Golden Triangle. Before she was with CVC, De Percin led nonprofi ts that fought anti-LGBTQ violence and pushed for access to health care. She needs a job “that centers on people,” she says, and likes to work “with people who are maybe farthest from privilege and op- portunity: LGBTQ folks, Medicaid folks, people with low incomes. These have been the spaces I’ve been in, and it’s where my heart is drawn to.” Her only outlier job involved protecting the Colorado River, but she took it because of her love of whitewater rafting and stand-up paddle boarding — both activities symbolic of the diffi cult tasks she and Johnston will face in 2024. “The thing about navi- gating rough waters is that you’re not in charge. You have to work with the water or the water will always win,” she says. “There are defi nitely go- ing to be bumps in our job, and some of our expertise will help smooth that out. There are bumps every day in this work, so it’s some- thing we’re used to as an organization.” — BENNITO L. KELTY Doing it their way: An and Thoa Nguyen An and Thoa Nguyen grew up in the res- taurant business: Their parents were the longtime owners of New Saigon until selling the eatery in 2017. In recent years, the sisters both launched their own ventures. An opened Savory Viet- nam in the former home of King’s Land res- taurant in 2019; it quickly raked in accolades, including an award for Best Vietnamese Restaurant in Westword’s Best of Denver issue in 2021 and 2022. In April 2022, Thoa opened Banh & Butter Bakery Cafe in Aurora, on a stretch of East Colfax Avenue that is in the midst of a lot of change. And there are big changes in store for both sisters, as well. After a four-year run, An recently an- nounced the bittersweet news that Savory Vietnam was closing; it shuttered on De- cember 15. “I’m the main chef, but I have partners who are older, and we just decided to disperse and go our own way,” she says. “Honestly, I’m okay with Savory Vietnam closing, because I’ve always wanted to do something a little smaller to showcase more of my cuisine, my way.” While the details are under wraps for now, she’s planning to launch a new venture in 2024. “Everything happens for a reason. I’m just really excited to see my sister grow into something that she can really call her own,” Thoa says, noting that Savory Vietnam was in the same neighborhood as New Saigon, which put a lot of expectations on An to serve traditional, familiar Vietnamese fare. “Now she’ll be able to open up her menu and do things the way she wants to do it.” Thoa can appreciate that. “It’s the same for me at Banh & Butter. I’ve been able to make it more my own,” she says. Her bak- ing skills gained national attention after she made it to the fi nal round of the Food Network’s Holiday Baking Championship in December; while she didn’t win the whole competition, she’s excited about the expo- sure it provided her business. “It hasn’t even been open for two years yet. I still feel like I’m settling in,” she says. The holiday season has been busy at Banh & Butter, and Thoa hopes to continue that momentum. “I’m feeling really great,” she says. “But I am a little overwhelmed. I realize that my days and my times are split — doing interviews and events and trying to get the East Colfax area more recognition while also running a business and being an entrepreneur. But it’s a good problem to have, and the support from the community has been really great.” Her 2024 plans include nourishing the community in a new way. “By the end of next year, I would love to be able to launch online courses,” Thoa reveals. “My biggest background is coaching and teaching, and I’m not a gatekeeper of my recipes at all. I love to teach people how to do things, and I want to make a whole platform to do that.” The Denver food scene has been enriched in big ways recently by fi rst-generation Asian Americans who have launched businesses like Sap Sua, MAKfam, Thuy by PKR and Yuan Wonton, all of which put their own spin on the cuisines that the owners grew up eating. Now both Thoa and An are poised to do that in even bigger ways than they have already. “We’re going to reach for the stars a little bit,” Thoa concludes. — MOLLY MARTIN Club kings: Mario Nocifera and Robert Champion When you’re out clubbing in RiNo, Beacon is the place to be. The venue opened two years ago this December under owners Mario Nocifera and Robert Champion, who have since become true nightlife kings with their innovative endeavors at 2854 Larimer Street. And they’ll defi nitely be people to watch in 2024, as they plan to create yet another immersive-art and EDM hub with a new club near Beacon. With Beacon, Nocifera and Champion wanted to encapsulate the freewheeling, accepting spirit they encountered at such festivals as Burning Man. And they found the perfect audience in the Mile High City, where they connected with local artists to fi ll their club with immersive installations, creating a conversational atmosphere that also lends itself to premier partying. “I don’t think we realized how powerful it would be to Denver,” Nocifera refl ected on Beacon’s one-year an- niversary. “But I think whenever you create a place where you would want to be, inevitably you’re gonna love it no matter what.” That means the next venture will be just as close to their hearts, and if the city aligned with the Beacon, the new club should have a straight shot to success. When we walked through the space with Nocifera and Cham- pion in September, they weren’t ready to share either the address or the name of the spot with the public, but their vision was impressive even without such details. “Imagine a loungey space that is primarily brick & hardwood, has warm lighting, and is known for class but majorly loaded with quirks,” the owners wrote in an application for artists who want to collaborate with the venue. “The story begins with: Welcome to our 1920s dream house, where when you enter via the chimney, or a fl uffy cloud, you’ll fi nd that everything in this house has gone terribly…right.” While Beacon is currently RiNo’s late- night haven, Champion and Nocifera hope to capture more of the daytime, early-afternoon and evening crowds with the new club. “It’s the same principle in terms of how people treat each other and how authentic we want people to feel free to continued on page 10 Colorado Village Collaborative CEO Dede de Percin An (left) and Thoa Nguyen COURTESY OF COLORADO VILL AGE COLL ABORATIVE COURTESY OF AN NGUYEN/FOOD NETWORK
