A Year After the Lakeview Fire, Here's Where Nederland's Favorite Shops Landed Before Ski Season

Where do you get a pint, a guitar repair or a last-minute pair of gloves in Nederland in the weeks before Eldora opens? For more than a decade, the answer to all three was one building on Lakeview Drive. This fall, the answer is spread across several addresses, and most of them sit within a few blocks of each other.

Caribou Village Shopping Center at 20 Lakeview Drive burned early on October 9, 2025. John Thompson of Mountain Man Outdoor Store told The Mountain-Ear that his store and 20 other businesses had called the center home. A year later, a lot of those businesses are open again. They're just no longer under one roof, and the plan for the burned site means the new arrangement will last a while.

Where the familiar names are now

Here is where the businesses with confirmed new homes ended up, based on Mountain-Ear reporting from November 2025 through October 2026, starting with the paper's November 2025 roundup of where displaced businesses had moved.

The old bank on Highway 119 took over much of Caribou Village's role

The Vault started out as a bank. Snyder Street Commercial spent two years designing, permitting and building it into a small plaza, with shops around the edges and a shared seating area in the middle. The center held its grand opening on May 15 through 17, 2026, with a silent disco, local artists' booths and live bands at Very Nice. According to The Mountain-Ear's coverage of the opening, the tenants are a mix of businesses that spent years at Caribou Village and startups that are new to Nederland.

Here's what's inside:

• Very Nice Brewing, owned by Susan and Jeff Green, runs its taproom upstairs. There's room for live bands, a side conversation room with couches, and a nook called the Red Room.
• Kitchen at The Vault serves the shared tables in the middle. It's a new venture from Lauren Knight, who owns the Kaleidoscope Kitchen food truck, and fellow local chef Rob Rosser. Their staff includes several people who worked at Tres Gringos before the fire.
• Brightwood Music, run by Doug Armitage, does instrument sales and repair. It was already moving to The Vault when the fire hit, and Armitage has since restocked his inventory and tools.
• 8236 Gear is a gift shop from longtime local Katrina Harms, focused on mountain life.
• InkHaus Tattoo has Everett Nielsen and a team of local artists, plus body jewelry and gifts.

Jeff Green explained to The Mountain-Ear in October why The Vault became the landing spot: "We were pretty lucky to have a place to go, as there's not a lot of commercial areas in Nederland." He also said fitting the brewery into a shared indoor space with several unrelated businesses had been a challenge, and that the move has paid off as the community returns to the taproom.

Green's point explains the rest of the map. A town with little commercial space can't rebuild 20-plus storefronts all at once. Businesses took whatever space opened up, close by if possible.

Across the street and a few blocks over

Mountain Man moved the shortest distance. Thompson reopened across the street at 98 Peak to Peak Highway less than two weeks after the fire. Inventory came from his vendors and from the community, including a lot of donated clothing that he sells on consignment. By that July, Thompson told the paper he still had gaps on the shelves eight months in. So if you remember the old store's winter stock, expect some changes.

The two health practices, Columbine Family Care and Nederland Chiropractic & Wellness Center, moved to Poppy Plaza at 268 West 3rd Street. Both were seeing patients there by November 2025.

The art from the old center is spread out too. With help from fellow painter Laurence Delaunay, Danielle Crouse's work now hangs at Lolo's Atelier, 25 East 1st Street. Crouse used to manage Kaleidoscope Fine Arts Gallery and the Nederland Art Studios at Caribou Village. In November 2025, stained glass artist Kay O'Neil showed the Mountain-Ear a new space at 30 West Boulder Street that she was getting ready for O'Neil Rocky Mountain Art. Check with her studio before you visit.

According to The Mountain-Ear's coverage of the Nederland Strong rally, Tadasana Mountain Yoga has been teaching in borrowed rooms, including the Nederland Community Center, HubNed, Boulder Creek Lodge and Eldora.

Some of it only opens on certain days

A couple of former Caribou Village tenants don't have regular storefront hours at the moment. That changes how you find them this winter.

Augustina's Winery now makes its wine in a Rollinsville warehouse. Owner Walter told The Mountain-Ear she has no plans to open it for public tastings. She's preparing for fall and winter festivals instead, including Nederland's Holiday Mountain Market, with a shorter list of her regular wines. The Holiday Mountain Market runs Saturday and Sunday, December 5 and 6, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Nederland Community Center, 750 Colorado 72. For now, that weekend is one of the most reliable places to buy her wine in town.

Wild Bear Nature Center is a bigger version of the same story. Its new building at 88 Indian Peaks Drive was still under construction when its home at Caribou Village burned. Executive Director Trish Krajniak told the Mountain-Ear that losing that space cut operations roughly in half. Staff and volunteers spent six months converting the childcare license to a mobile day camp so local kids still had camp in summer 2026. The new center sits next to Mud Lake, with direct access to 3,000 acres of open space and 16 miles of trails. It includes a stage, classrooms, an observatory and an outdoor amphitheater. As of mid-October, programs are expected to start by January 1, 2027, with the public opening in spring 2027. Back in October 2025, Boulder Reporting Lab had reported a fall 2026 target, so the opening has moved back by a season.

The rebuild is real, and it's still a few years away

Tebo Properties owns the Lakeview Drive site. In mid-October, Ben Meyers of Tebo showed former tenants detailed designs and early renderings, and said the company planned to file permits with the Town of Nederland that same week. Groundbreaking is expected in spring 2027, and the hope is to finish in 2028.

According to The Mountain-Ear's one-year report, the new Caribou Village will:

1. Have 24 units, many of them pre-built with the plumbing, HVAC and ventilation a brewery or restaurant would need
2. Use fire-resistant materials and be fully sprinklered
3. Split down the middle with a skylit central atrium, plus patio space facing Lakeview Drive and around the atrium
4. Include a kids' play area on the side nearest the Carousel of Happiness
5. Reuse decontaminated steel from the old building in its landscaping

Former tenants can reclaim their old spaces. When asked about rent, Meyers said construction costs hadn't been factored in yet, and added:

"We're going to try our best to keep it close to what the prices were before. This project is, to us, more than just something to make money off of. It's for the community."

The paper reported that the tenants at that meeting were split. Some knew they weren't going to move again, a few wanted space in the new center, and others stayed neutral, since a lot can happen in two to three years. Augustina's has said it hopes to open a tasting room there. Even so, The Vault, Peak to Peak Highway, West 3rd and East 1st are where these businesses will be through this ski season and the next one, and some will likely stay for good.

Eldora opening day on the new map

Eldora's opening day is scheduled for Friday, November 13, about two weeks after this post goes up. According to the resort's FAQ, lifts run 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekdays and 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekends. As Boulder County requires, cars with only the driver inside pay a parking fee on weekends, holidays and weekday powder days with 10 or more inches of new snow. If you'd rather not drive, RTD's Ski-n-Ride Route NB runs hourly every day during ski season, and riders can board at Downtown Boulder Station.

For a pint after skiing, head to the taproom upstairs at The Vault on Highway 119. For gloves or a hat on the way up, Mountain Man is across the street from the old center at 98 Peak to Peak Highway.

At The Fox Group, a lot of our clients live in the foothills and the high country, so we keep up with how towns like Nederland change from one season to the next. If you're thinking about life in the mountains and want to talk through what everyday errands, ski days and community events look like in a specific town, we'd be glad to hear from you.