Fort Collins is a college town renowned for its great breweries, biking and give-back culture. So it no surprise to hear that two deeply rooted local businesses, the Holiday Twin Drive-In and FoCo Cafe, are teaming up to bring the first ever Bikes, Brews, and Blockbusters on Sunday, August 19.
The Holiday Twin Drive-in, one of the last nine drive-ins in Colorado, will host this unique bike-in festival to celebrate independent film created by artists from Northern Colorado. All proceeds from the event will be donated to FoCo Cafe — the first non-profit pay-for-what-you-can restaurant in Fort Collins — so that it can continue to bring mouth-watering cooking to the community.
Holiday Twin Drive-In in Fort Collins, CO. Photo courtesy of Holiday Twin Instagram page.“The goal is to empower local artists while showcasing the creative talent in our own backyard,” said Mallory Andrews who is the executive director of FoCo Cafe. “The drive-in is often referred to as a hidden gem of Fort Collins, and so is FoCo Cafe. We figured it would be a great way to collaborate!”
The event will bring out 10 different Fort Collins breweries — including big names like Odell — that will provide 10 4-ounce pours of great brews while you enjoy live music from musicians such as A Brother’s Fountain, Blind Alley Troubadours and Crispy Watkins and the Crack Willows and food from a handful of food trucks that will be present.
FoCo Cafe in Fort Collins. Photo courtesy of FoCo Cafe’s Facebook page.The creation of the event focused of making the festival one of the main fundraisers for FoCo Cafe — which relies heavily on it donations from patrons and fundraising event like this one. The necessity for these bigger fundraisers became more apparent when two weeks ago during a busy lunch rush, the donation box was stolen off the counter with all the donations inside.
The day the donation box went missing they posted a statement about its disappearance on their Facebook pages It read:
“We apologize if we seemed a bit “off” today at FoCo Cafe . During our lunch service, someone stole our donation box, including all of the donations from Today’s lunch service.
We are a non-profit community driven cafe, reliant on the support of the community and for us, this is devastating to our ability to carry out our mission. We would be appreciative if anyone comes across our donation box (pictured), or info regarding the incident, to please let us know.”
The Fort Collins community did what they do best, and rallied together to help replace over five times the amount of donation inside the box, but it highlighted the fact that FoCo Cafe can’t continue to serve the community if they don’t receive enough donations yearly. So don’t forget to buy your tickets for Bikes, Brews, and Blockbuster for all $20 — a portion of which is directly donated to FoCo Cafe.
Editor’s note: a previous version of this article said all proceeds go to FoCo Cafe but it is only a portion.