The Beet Goes On
A sweet addition to the county’s dining scene

Story and photos by Julia Layton

Fresh berries over mixed greens with sorrel, pistachios and tangerine-pomegranate vinaigrette.

Barely one year old, the upscale, cozy Sugarbeet is Justine and Seth Witherspoon’s attempt to do it better. Years in the dining industry have made them sensitive to the fine details that keep people coming back. Seth cooked at the old Delta Grill in Longmont, brought Lucile’s to town and spent five years as executive chef at Boulder’s RedFish. Drawing on Seth’s kitchen experience and Justine’s long and diverse bartending résumé, which includes the Sundown Saloon in Boulder and the Left Hand Brewery, the pair built on what they know best to create an experience not often found in Longmont—fine dining in a stylish but unimposing atmosphere.

Graceful, peridot-green pendants light the bar, tended by Justine. Behind her hangs a Warhol-style color-block print of a sugar beet, a restaurant-warming gift from a friend. The large, comfortable tables, all 10 of them, frame the space and provide an uncramped setting for Seth’s culinary creations. An expansive wall of windows offers diners a view of the tracks and an occasional train sighting. Dining chairs and barstools are spaced for comfort. And from anywhere in the restaurant, guests can look up into the rafters to see a massive papier-mâché sugar beet—another gift from a friend—hanging from the high ceiling. They routinely ask why there’s a white radish up there.

Local Roots

The Witherspoons planned to name their place “The Railyard“ until a restaurant in Boulder beat them to it. Finally they settled on “Sugarbeet,” after the crop that put Longmont on the agricultural map. The sugar beet is a high-sucrose white root vegetable that, in fairness to diners, does look an awful lot like a giant white radish. It grows exceptionally well in the soil of northeastern Colorado, and was a big part of Longmont’s development in the late 1800s and early 1900s, when people came from as far as Eastern Europe to work in the booming sugar-beet fields. A small processing factory at the western edge of Longmont eventually became the Great Western Sugar Company, which produced most of the beet sugar in Colorado and surrounding states for more than 60 years.

Justine and Seth Witherspoon behind the bar at Sugarbeet.

What Seth and Justine call their “contemporary, seasonal American” cuisine is pretty hip—an alternative to casual family dining, as they put it. The dishes are eclectic and creative, while still reflecting a purist’s view of cooking: Let the quality of the ingredients do most of the talking. “Our recipes are fairly simple,” Justine says. “We start with the freshest, most high-end ingredients and let the flavor of those ingredients come through in the preparation.”

Start off with Gorgonzola-stuffed Medjool dates wrapped in Parma prosciutto ($7) or the house salad with fresh beets, shaved fennel, candied hazelnuts and tarragon vinaigrette ($5). Seth gets his ingredients from local sources whenever possible; last summer, almost all of Sugarbeet’s produce came from the organic Full Circle Farm in Longmont. For your entrée, try the house-favorite seared ahi tuna with spicy ginger ponzu and wasabi, sweet potato tempura and grilled asparagus ($23), or the popular grilled jumbo blue-crab cakes with horseradish dill aioli and celery-root slaw ($18). Finish off your meal with a slice of Key lime pie (people regularly stop in to buy a whole pie) or the seasonal fruit cobbler ($5.50).

Some Things Stay the Same

The Witherspoons change the menu and wine list every three months, keeping some favorites from season to season when possible. No matter the season, you can always get one of Justine’s special cocktails, like the French Connection, a Maker’s Mark Manhattan with Grand Marnier and blood-orange juice. The wine list features about 15 wines by the glass ($7 to $10) and bottles from vineyards in the United States, Italy, France and New Zealand ($23-$70). There’s also a very nice collection of Scotches, whiskeys and liqueurs (try the Godiva White!).

Seared ahi tuna with spicy ginger ponzu and wasabi, sweet potato tempura and grilled asparagus.

Although Sugarbeet is still in its infancy, the idea is to get the restaurant right and keep it that way. It’s “casual fine dining,” Justine emphasizes. “We don’t have a sommelier. But you can also have a really great three-course dinner and drinks for two for under $100.” The approach is working: Sugarbeet is growing. The Witherspoons stay up late at night expanding into the adjacent warehouse space, which will soon be a second dining room that will accommodate not only more diners but also larger, private parties. And in November, the executive chef from the Boulder ChopHouse moved over to Sugarbeet to cook with Seth. “We’re putting together a really solid team,” Seth says. With the team in place, it could be that one day, the Witherspoons will take a vacation. But that won’t be any time soon. And they’re fine with that.

| Sugarbeet, located at 101 Pratt St. in Longmont, is open for dinner Wed-Sat 4-10pm, and Sun 4-9pm (it’s closed Mon and Tues). 303-651-3330, www.sugarbeetrestaurant.com. Reservations recommended.

| Julia Layton is assistant editor of Boulder Magazine and editor of the e-letter GetBoulder News.

Go to top