Famous East Side Food Store owner Tanvir Malik, who took over the bodega in 2019, said he wants to move back to Texas to be closer to family, but he is having trouble selling the business because he has only a short-term lease guarantee from the landlord. Malik plans to leave at the end of February.
Banners outside the store at 381 S. Saint Vrain Ave. proclaim “liquidation sale” and “store closing: everything must go!” Select items are 50 percent off or buy one, get one free. The shop sells snacks, basic groceries, beer, CBD, smokes, and vapes.
“I want to retire,” Malik said. “I have a health issue. Plus, I want to go back home to Dallas.”
His original lease was five years. But during that time, the property was sold to a new owner, Nathan Kinley, who Malik said indicated he wants to redevelop the site, possibly for more housing. The property includes the adjacent self-serve car wash and about a dozen housing units behind the convenience store.
Kinley also owns Park Supply hardware and the paint store next door and is the founder of Kinley Built, a luxury building company in Estes Park.
According to Malik, Kinley offered a conditional three-year lease with an option to review every year. Malik said he has several customers who would be interested in buying the business, but would need a longer lease guarantee to make it worth the investment.
The business is doing well, though it has slowed down somewhat in the last year. Like others in Estes, the store relies on heavy tourist traffic from April through August to support it through the rest of the year. January is the slowest time.
Malik, 79, runs the mom-and-pop shop with his wife and occasional seasonal help. He immigrated to the United States from Pakistan in 1975, first to New York and New Jersey, then to Texas.
“I got a very, very good environment for me to grow myself as a newcomer to America, but I worked very hard,” Malik said. “A lot of opportunity here. This is the best country, so far, for me, you know. My kids were born here. I got blessed.”
He owned a gas station in Dallas until he retired about 15 years ago. He first came to Estes Park while visiting two of his adult children who live in Boulder.
“I said, man, this is a beautiful place. I could live here, I could visit them. Hey, I am going to start my life again. So, I decided to buy this place,” Malik said.
The experience has been good.
“It’s been very helpful,” he said. “I made reasonable money here. There are nice people around here, supportive. I’m going to miss this place, but I am going to visit all the time because my kids still live here.”
The corner store has a long history.
The building was constructed in 1949 and remodeled in 1982, according to Larimer County property records. Philip and Christine Switzer opened the East Side Food Store in May 1982, according to advertisements and public notices in the Estes Park Trail-Gazette archives.
(Internationally, the Switzers were more commonly known as owners of the Switzer-land Alpaca farm, which also closed in recent years.)
East Side became the place in town to rent videos in the 1980s.
The Switzers sold the business to Thomas and Christine Kim in February 1998, according to an article in the Estes Park Trail-Gazette. The article notes the store owned 2,600 video titles at the time. Ownership changed hands several more times before Malik took over in 2019.
A warranty deed shows that the living trust of Philip and Christine Switzer sold the property (including the housing units and car wash) to Kinley’s NDK Properties, LLC, in September 2023 for $2,025,000.
Although the store is closing, a curious piece of East Side history remains preserved in the Estes Park Museum’s collection: a branded plastic ballpoint pen dated from 1988 with an inscription that reads: “East Side Food Store / Car Wash / Video Rentals / Hiway 7 / Estes Park, Colorado”
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