Best Colorado Deals: Easter, CSAs, Thrift Stores & more!

    Warm weather is bringing crowds to Bonnie Brae Ice Cream, and they're noticing the vacancy at 747 S. University Blvd., a space occupied for 69 years by Bonnie Brae Flowers. Here’s the story. Owner Jim Gobert (who took over for his parents in the ’70s), had been yearning to buy the building for decades, and lease renewal was coming up in June. So he snapped at the opportunity to purchase new digs at 5595 E. Evans Ave., 303-758-9771.

    “It’s sad,” said Gobert. “I spent my whole life there. I don’t have any negative feelings about the old location, but the new building was just too good to pass up.”

    The transplant has put down strong roots, and business is blooming. To celebrate, on Saturday, April 3, anyone who comes into the store and asks will receive $5 off any purchase of $20 or more.

 

 

    Ivan Fears and Laurie Martin, late of the Indulgences etc. treats and coffee shop across the street from the Capitol on Colfax, are back in the biz. Their popular Rockwood Fine Candies, ribbon and hard candy – in pastel shades for Easter – is available to Denverites at two gift shops: The Lark, 1219 E. Fourth Ave., 303-744-7464; and Talulah Jones, 1122 E. 17th Ave., 303-832-1230.

 

    Children’s clothing and shoes are $1, handbags and rugs are $3, men’s and women’s clothing and shoes are $3.50, blankets and throws are $6 each, bedspreads and comforters are $8 each, and dozens of other items are similarly priced during the bulk pricing sale through Wednesday, April 5, at Boulder’s Hospice Care & Share Thrift Shop, 5290 Arapahoe Ave., 303-604-5353. Then, when the doors open at 10 a.m. Thursday, April 6, all the bulk-priced items you can jam into a standard plastic grocery bag are $6 a bag. The sale helps Hospice Care support terminally ill and grieving residents of Boulder and Broomfield Counties.

 

    Don’t fall victim to rising produce prices. Now’s the time to lock in fair prices on locally grown, mostly organic produce by purchasing shares in Community Supported Agriculture.

    Here’s how the Colorado Department of Agriculture describes it:

    A friend who split a small share in the Grant Family Farm CSA last year says she spent about $10 a week for 26 weeks, picked up her produce at a spot about a mile from her house and received “an amazing selection of vegetables.”

    Amazing results aren’t guaranteed, however. The quality and quantity of your produce will rise or fall with the fate of the crop. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

    “It gave me a sense of what it means to be a farmer. Sometimes you get a bumper crop, and sometimes you get wiped out by a hailstorm,” she said.

    For more information on CSAs, go to www.localharvest.org/csa.

 

    Prestigious Denver furniture retailer HW Home, still has a few terrific bargains left over from the annual warehouse sale in February. Head over to the Flatiron Crossing store in Broomfield, 720-887-1223, to check deals like these: Martha leather wing chair from Bernhardt, originally $1,995, $999; Hayward sectional from Precedent, originally $4,530, $2,299; San Carlos queen bed from the HW Modern Home Collection, originally $1,650, $699; San Carlos king bed, originally $1,950, $899. HW Home also is offering a 20% discount on special-order upholstered, slip covered and leather pieces through Mother’s Day, May 9. 

 

    Just Between Friends Spring Consignment Sale, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Friday, April 2; 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, April 3 (half-price sale), admission, $2; Denver Christian School, 1733 E. Dad Clark Drive, Highlands Ranch.