FOODsmith Prep opens new shop in downtown Eagle
New brick-and-mortar location serves up homemade take-home meals, cooking classes and unique retail items
FOODsmith Prep/Courtesy photo
What’s for dinner? Ask FOODsmith Prep. The new shop in downtown Eagle offers handcrafted take-home meals to please anyone at your table. The brick-and-mortar location may be new, but FOODsmith is not. Owners Allana Smith and her husband Shawn Smith have been in the valley since the late 1990s and met when Shawn hired Allana in the pastry department at the Lodge at Vail in Vail Village. Shawn went on to create Mountain Flour and specializes in making pastries, wedding cakes and ice cream. Allana went through the ranks at Larkspur, eventually becoming director of operations, and also helped open up Avondale at The Westin Riverfront Resort in Avon and Centre V at the Arrabelle in Lionshead before going out on her own and starting a catering business in 2014 called FOODsmith.
“The bulk of our business has been going into people’s homes, cooking meals and being a personal chef and we’ve obviously been asked to do drop-off meals for years. So, the idea to create FOODsmith Prep just kind of organically grew,” Allana Smith said.
Although the demand was there, it took a while for FOODSmith Prep to get up and running. Its location at 318 Broadway was purchased during the summer of 2022. This building was at different points in time has housed the Colorado Mountain Medical offices, a title company and the old post office. Much remodeling needed to be done, but one thing they didn’t need to do was create a commercial kitchen. Allana and Shawn Smith have operated out of a commercial kitchen on Chambers Avenue in Eagle for 23 years.
“What we have in this location is a residential kitchen where we can conduct cooking classes and people can come and take the cooking class, and they can stay and dine on what they prepared. We serve wine and beer as well,” Allana Smith said. “We love that social aspect of it.”
The Smiths host all sorts of classes, catering to the experienced home chef as well as the novice chef. They also provide an activity that’s an alternative to skiing to help fill the daytime void if there are members in your party who are not heading to the slopes each day.
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“I’ve got a group that I cook for every winter. They come out with their whole management team, and they said, ‘This year, our group is a little bigger and some of the people don’t ski. We’re looking for a midday activity for them,’ so they’re going to come down here and take a yoga class in the morning and then come over here and do a lunchtime cooking class,” Allana Smith said.
The Smiths are having fun coming up with themes for the cooking classes. Need something for Game Day? How about a class on how to make wings and Philly cheese steak. Want to learn how to make pasta? FOODsmith Prep has you covered. They also plan to mix it up with cocktail-making classes and will host guest chefs doing specialty topics based on their skill sets.
“We have a class that is scheduled before Thanksgiving where you come and learn how to make salted caramel lattice-topped apple pie, and you take one home in a glass pie dish,” Allana Smith said. “We’re doing one that’s after Thanksgiving where you’ll bring your turkey leftovers and we’ll make turkey pot pie or like something you can have in your freezer.”
As far as the take-home menu goes, it’s always rotating but Allana Smith said that they carry a lot of items that can be placed in the freezer in case you want to stock up. From breakfast items like egg casseroles and French toast casseroles, to snacks like the green goddess dip and lasagnas and Colorado turkey pot pies for dinner, its worth a trip to FOODsmith Prep to see what’s cooking.
“We’ve also been making a few different salads every day and trying to have some of our deep dish pizzas already thawed so that you literally take it home and eat it tonight,” Allana Smith said.
FOODsmith Prep also has a retail aspect to it and sells many items like utensils or products used in the cooking classes.
“If you take a sushi class, you can buy the rice, you can buy the nori, you can buy the sushi mat or the knife that you used in class right here in our shop,” Allana Smith said.
Allana Smith said they are excited to be a part of the town of Eagle and offer the take-home meals and also provide a learning outlet in a fun atmosphere.
“It’s funny because my parents were public elementary school teachers and as a kid I would say, ‘I am never going to be a teacher,’ but in this profession, we naturally teach. For example, at Larkspur, we had 100 new employees every winter, so you were always teaching a new group of people each year. And Shawn taught over at Colorado Mountain College with their culinary program for a brief time. So, I guess this teaching thing has come full circle,” Allana Smith said.
To learn about upcoming classes or how FOODsmith Prep can host your next private event, go to FoodsmithVail.com or just stop by their location on Broadway, look for the large whisk out front.
