Downtown culinary-wares shop has thrilled local foodies from the start

Before cooking shows and culinary gadgets were a big deal, there was Sparrow Hawk. The local cookware store was a bit of a novelty when it opened back in 1979.

Most local foodies remember its cramped quarters on Bijou Street. Since its move to 120 N. Tejon St. last year, the store has mushroomed in size. It houses thousands of small appliances, gadgets, dishes and glassware in its more than 8,000 square feet (4,000 square feet of retail and 4,000 square feet of warehouse in the basement). You’d be hard-pressed not to find what you want for the foodie on your gift list.

And that’s exactly the philosophy of Sam Eppley, who has owned the store — which has added “Gourmet Cookware” to its name — since the beginning.

“We want you to come in here and find exactly what you are looking for, and we want you to have a choice,” he said.

That would explain why, in the basement, you’ll see complete sets of Le Creuset cookware in all seven colors.

“This has been one of our best-sellers over the years,” he said. “We were the original people here to sell it, and it became our biggest-seller. It’s still huge.”

The basement has shelves filled with sets of pottery in multiple colors, dozens of styles of toasters, pot racks of all sorts, and just about anything else for the home kitchen.

But on the rare occasion that Sam Eppley is not able to supply the exact item you seek, it’s not a problem. “We work very closely with the Cupboard in Fort Collins and the Peppercorn in Boulder,” he said. “If we don’t have what you’re looking for, we call them, and if they have it, they send it to us in a couple of days. We do the same for them.

That saves the time of going to a distributor that could take much longer for shipment.”

The early years
Eppley, a graduate of Colorado College with an MBA from the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, wanted to start a gift business downtown. He was sort of following in the footsteps of his dad, who had an antique-Indian-art store downtown.

“It was going to be a half-Hallmark-and-half-culinary store,” he said. “After only a few months, the culinary was becoming the moneymaker. People were getting interested in cooking, and there wasn’t much competition.”

He opened that store in 1979 on Bijou Street in 1,400 square feet. Within four years he expanded to 2,800 square feet. Ever since, the store has held strong as the go-to place for all things culinary, even with the ups and downs of the economy.

“It’s been sheer determination,” says Helen Eppley, Sam’s mom, about the store's survival. As anyone who has visited the store knows, Helen Eppley, 83, is the lady behind the cash register with the complete store inventory at the tip of her tongue. Mother and son have worked side by side for most of the store’s history.

“We wanted, and still want, to provide customers with a world-class store in Colorado Springs,” said Sam.

The family business includes Sam’s brother, Allen, another mainstay at the store. “Allen is the one who does all the buying,” said Sam Eppley. “I handle the book work. Over the years, my children have worked in the store, and my wife helps out, too.”

For Pati Burleson, co-owner of the Margarita at PineCreek, who opened her restaurant in 1969, Sparrow Hawk was like a dream come true.

“We really didn’t have a cookware store and it was so nice to finally have one that sold good equipment,” she said. “Professional and home cooks were drooling over all the wonderful kitchen equipment in the store.”

She bought the first Cusinart for her restaurant from the Eppleys. “I had always used two forks to make the dozens of tart crusts we used," she said. “Helen kept telling me I could get the job done much faster and easier with a Cusinart. She talked me into buying one, and it was great.”

The name game
It seems odd that a culinary store would sport the name Sparrow Hawk.

“When I was working with the bank to establish my business, I was looking for a name that wasn’t already taken,” Sam Eppley said. “A good friend of ours who was working in the bank at the time was nursing an injured sparrow hawk back to health. The bird had hit the bank window. I decided that would be a good name for my store and was not probably taken by anyone else. And, remember, I wasn’t thinking this would be a strictly culinary store at first.”

The name has morphed over time: “Cookware” was added, and then it became “Gourmet Cookware.”

Best-sellers
“Le Creuset is a biggie,” he said. “And the Atlas pasta machine and the Cuisinart.”

As for the next generation of top-sellers, Eppley lists microplanes and anything made of silicon.

“When silicon first came out, it was way too expensive. But the prices have come down, and it’s a wonderful material for making cooking gadgets,” he said.

The future
Though the Eppleys are not in any hurry to retire, they wonder about what will happen to the business in the coming years.

“I have a son in college, and my daughter is in junior high,” said Sam Eppley. “They both have spent time working here, but whether they would want to take over — who knows?”

As for Helen Eppley, “I just love being here,” she said enthusiastically. “It’s my social life!”

For gadget-gift recommendations from the Eppleys, see http://www.gazette.com/articles/sparrow-90456-hawk-sam.html.