A typical workday for Eric Skokan might go something like this.
He wakes up at his family’s Boulder County farm and restaurant, Black Cat Farm, where diners will gather that evening to enjoy views of the foothills, and the mountains beyond, from one of seven cabanas on the property. Then he heads out the door to get to work, directing a team that maintains plots of beans, wheat and leafy greens, as well as tends to pigs and sheep, here and at two other parcels encompassing 500 acres.
Farm workers tend to a field at Black Cat Farmstead in Boulder County on Aug. 28, 2025. (Photo by RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post)After lunch and some more farming, he shifts his attention to the restaurant’s kitchen, where, since last October, he has been devising a weekly multi-course menu using vegetables harvested and foraged on site. By 6:30 p.m., the grey-haired Skokan is fidgeting outside the kitchen cottage next to the cabanas, flip phone in hand, to keep tabs on his farmhands, watching a menagerie of starter plates — artichoke flan and truffle mousse in an egg shell, watermelon and purslane salad with goat milk curd, a ricotta galette with a pistachio crust — go out the door.
Related: Watch The Denver Post’s video of Black Cat Farm from 2019
A plate slips off a server’s tray and shatters. Skokan winces. He quickly regains his composure, his mind already on to the next task at hand. When operating a farm and restaurants and managing a crew of about 40 employees, a little chaos is common.
On a recent day in July, about two dozen guests who had booked their $165 tickets long in advance arrived at the farm, donning wide-brimmed hats and tucked-in shirts. Some sipped on sangrias before the meal began. Others took photos by a rusty but picturesque tractor or admired the view of the sloping hillside, which brimmed with three varieties of sunflowers.
As rain started to fall over the farm, hosts ushered the guests under umbrellas to their respective cabanas for dinner. The structures look like sheds from the exterior, built below the Skokan home and carved onto the sloping hill. Inside each, a wooden table decorated with a vintage oil lamp is set underneath window panes that span the width of the wall, giving unimpeded views of the mountains north of Boulder.
It’s one of the most stunning and unusual dinner settings in all of Colorado.
“Unhappy side effect”
Skokan was born in California and worked in kitchens around the country after graduating from the University of Virginia. He moved from his home state to Colorado, working at, among other places, the Stanley Hotel. He opened his first Boulder restaurant, the original Black Cat, with his wife, Jill Skokan, in 2006. The name was a reference to their residence on 13th Street in Boulder — the number 13 and black cats, both symbols of bad luck among the superstitious.
In 2012, they opened Bramble & Hare at 1964 13th St., next door to Black Cat (Bramble & Hare now occupies both spaces). That same year, they purchased the farm, about 13 miles north of Boulder, and began hosting sporadic farm-side dinners on long wooden tables.
Black Cat’s transition to rustic farm-based restaurant emerged as an “unhappy side effect” of the COVID-19 pandemic, when Black Cat and Bramble & Hare were closed , Skokan said. He looked at the open farmland below his house and figured he could continue serving guests there with more safety precautions against the virus.
“We started with just picnic tables in the garden. Then we put up patio umbrellas. Then some big storms blew the patio umbrellas into my next-door neighbor’s buffalo field,” the soft-spoken Skokan deadpanned. “Then we realized we needed more protection, and more stout protection.”
Guests start to arrive for dinner at Black Cat Farmstead in Boulder County on Aug. 28, 2025. (Photo by RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post)The upgrade was also required by Boulder County officials, who in 2021 developed guidelines for outdoor dining and told Skokan to bring his structures up to code. He paused operations for nearly four years, designing cabanas that were compliant with building and zoning law, he said.
Through trial and error, Skokan and his crew at the farm upgraded the setup to withstand rain and cold temperatures. They installed heat-insulated windows that could open to let in fresh air; small wooden stoves for the winter and ceiling fans for the summer; and blankets and faux furs on the floor and draped over chairs.
The current iteration of cabanas is the seventh or eighth, by Skokan’s count. The foundation of the original farm building on the property was also reinforced. “Essentially, having dinner here at the farm is, from a code perspective, the equivalent of having dinner in a restaurant in a city,” he said.
In October, Skokan officially reopened Black Cat Farm. The restaurant prepares a prix fixe, farm-to-table menu Wednesdays through Saturdays. It books out at least a month in advance.
Black Cat Farmstead is a farm-to-table dining experience with multi-course meals served in glass-enclosed cabanas with mountain views, as seen here in Boulder County on Aug. 28, 2025. (Photo by RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post)A typical plate combines a protein — tuna, pork belly, beef loin — with vegetables, cheese and other ingredients grown or produced on site. One course featured small sides, including baked beans and potato salad, arranged in a circle around a mound of grilled beef loin.
Skokan has amassed an encyclopedic knowledge of cuisine and agriculture, and has twice been nominated for regional James Beard Awards. In 2017 and while at the original Black Cat, he was a semifinalist for best chef in the Southwest region; in 2022 and with Bramble & Hare in addition, he was a finalist and nominee.
Now, he shows up inside cabanas to delight guests with bits about the dishes in front of them.
Light from the setting sun illuminates a starter dish prepared by Chef Eric Skokan at Black Cat Farmstead in Boulder County on Aug. 28, 2025. (Photo by RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post)The seeds of his knowledge are under the ground. Next to Skokan’s sunflowers — which are harvested for their roots, which have a taste and texture he compared to ginger — are rows of carrots, parsnips and beets. The root vegetables will be harvested this October, he said.
“They all go into cold storage in a barn,” he said. “Then we’re grabbing them all the way through the winter.”
The farm also supplies Bramble & Hare, a sustainable move that helped the restaurant twice garner a Michelin Green Star.
More bread, less driving
Since this is a Friday, though, it means that Skokan’s day is only half over.
After dinner service has ended, the chef takes a short nap at home and returns to the kitchen, where a handful of workers settle in to prepare 700 loaves of bread to sell at farmers markets in Boulder and Longmont. Skokan stays up through the night, working alongside them. Delivery trucks will arrive later that morning to pick up and distribute the bread, he said.
Running on such little sleep isn’t great for his mood, he admits. Once the bread trucks are gone, he’ll return to sleep, resting up to oversee Saturday night’s dinner service.
“I used to spend my time managing the farm, driving in circles around the county to our various farm properties and restaurants and whatnot,” he said. “Now I find myself walking from kitchen to farmhouse to various parts of the property.”
Seen through an old window, Chef Eric Skokan prepares the night’s menu at Black Cat Farmstead in Boulder County on Aug. 28, 2025. (Photo by RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post)He has no plans to stop the dinners, just as he had no grand plan to start them. And on the days when the restaurant isn’t open and his family isn’t hard at work impressing customers, they’re enjoying the “dark nights,” as he called them, looking out at the stars from the comfort of home.
“I don’t drive as much anymore, which is really lovely,” Skokan said.
Black Cat Farm is open for dinner Wednesday through Sunday. The kitchen does make dietary accommodations. Visit the restaurant’s OpenTable page for more information about reservations.
Subscribe to our new food newsletter, Stuffed, to get Denver food and drink news sent straight to your inbox.
Hence then, the article about boulder farmstead offers one of a kind dining experience beautiful views was published today ( ) and is available on The Denver Post ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Boulder farmstead offers one-of-a-kind dining experience, beautiful views )
Also on site :
- Another Weight Loss Surgery and a Wedding Bombshell: Spoilers From '1000-Lb Sisters' Season 8 Episode 2
- Trump-Iran latest: President threatens ‘very strong action’ if protesters are hanged after forced confessions
- Saks Global Secures $1.75 Billion of Committed Capital and Announces Return of Industry Veterans to Advance Transformation of Iconic Luxury Portfolio