Stuft Burger Bar is a locally owned and operated restaurant located in the heart of Old Town. They take great pride in creating their custom burgers, parmesan garlic fries and Hand-Spun Milkshakes. This isn't your ordinary burger joint, however, Stuft actually lets you build Your Own Burger from the ground up. You can choose from toppings such as caramelized onions, fire green chili peppers, and fried eggs. Heck, you can even put your burger on a Warm Glazed Doughnut instead of a bun! Our stomachs were literally grumbling with hunger after learning more about Stuft Burger Bar from owners Tiffany Helton and Jake Fitzsimmons in this week's community connections. 

What do you love about Fort Collins?

Everything. People are happy to visit here, and even happier to live here. Our patio can be full from March to October. Downtown, we’re surrounded by other locally-owned restaurants that are at the top of their game – which makes us even better. We love beautiful Old Town Square and the uniqueness of all of the locally owned businesses, the architecture, and friendliness of our citizens is infectious.

What are some of your favorite things to do in Fort Collins? 

Between our two families we love to visit local breweries in the area. Spending time camping, mountain biking, and boating at Horsetooth with our families makes life in Fort Collins so great. Our families love to dine at Stuft Burger (naturally). When the kids are at the sitter, you’ll find us downtown at Jax and the Welsh Rabbit. Nothing beats an ice cream cone and hanging out downtown in the summer…Shout out to Kilwin’s!

What is the story behind how you started Stuft Burger Bar?

We felt that in 2009 there was really a hole in the Fort Collins market for a good, gourmet burger. We wanted to focus on quality ingredients such as using Kennebec Potatoes for our fries and making most everything from scratch. We are very picky eaters and thought that the Build Your Own option is great for people like us. The concept of STUFT took a long time to develop. We figured as long as we focused on service and great high quality food, with a location in Old Town, that we would be successful. We had no idea at the time that we’d grow into a small regional chain.  It all started in a small space in downtown Fort Collins!

What makes Stuft Burger Bar unique?

Our business is unique all around in quality and options. If you want the BEST, BADDEST, BURGER around with some cool unique toppings you have to try us out. We have almost any burger topping you can imagine. Some toppings include, house made Chile Rellenos, sweet and spicy bacon, fried egg, cheese curds, fried pineapples. Our French Fries were awarded “Best Fries of Colorado’ by Yahoo! Travel. Our hand-spun milkshakes are made from real thick vanilla ice cream. Choose from original add ins such as Nutella, Mocha, Oreo, and even add in a whole Red Velvet Cupcake!

Tell us about yourselves...

Jake Fitzsimmons and Tiffany Helton Co-Own Stuft Burger Bar. Jake was raised here in Colorado attending CSU. He worked in advertising before realizing that he’d rather work longer hours and weekends for less pay by owning a restaurant. Kidding… (kind of). He and his wife Rebecca are raising three precocious kids (with another on the way) while living here in Old Town.

Tiffany Helton was born in Los Angeles and moved to Colorado to attend CSU. She has a devoted husband Aaron and two kids. Her background is restaurants and she has worked in the industry for over 20 years.

A fun fact about both of us is that we host our own radio show on 1310 KFKA called More Bacon Please! It’s a fun way for us to branch out of our restaurant a bit and lend our experience to other restaurant owners.

What do you want visitors to experience at Stuft Burger Bar?

We want them to have an experience that feels polished and professional, but retains our local soul.

Stuft Burger Bar

Address: 210 S. College Ave. Fort Collins, CO 80524
Phone: 970-484-6377
Email: oldtown@stuftburgerbar.com
Hours of Operation: Sun-Thurs 11am-9pm | Fri-Sat 11am-12am
Website: www.stuftburgerbar.com
Twitter: @Stuftburgerbar
Facebook: @Stuftburgerbar
Instagram: @stuftburgerbar