Bella la Crema, a new retail shop, is ready to butter up Longmont. The store at 931 Main St. is a boutique butter shop and dairy market, selling cultured butter that’s sweet, savory and everything in between.
The business celebrated its grand opening earlier this month. “We’ve only been open two weeks, and we’ve sold out of many different butters,” said Shauna Lee Strecker, owner of Bella la Crema. In 2018, Bella la Crema opened in Lyons as a “butter bar” – a sit-down cafe that offered butter flights, similar to wine flights.
That building was sold three years later, and Strecker began searching for a new venue. The combined production kitchen and retail space available on Longmont’s Main Street turned out to be the right next step for Bella la Crema. After the Lyons store closed, Strecker sold packaged tins of her butter at Bricks Retail in downtown Longmont.
Strecker has enjoyed working with the Longmont business community so far; she said a chef at West Side Tavern recently came into the store and bought five pounds of her “Wildflower” butter flavor, which the restaurant used in a lobster special. Strecker has also maintained a devoted customer base from Lyons, with regulars from the old location stopping by as soon as the new store opened. “Kids in Lyons have grown up with this butter,” she said.
The butter flavors are infused with an impressive array of spices and other ingredients: nutmeg, lime zest, lavender, turmeric, vanilla, garlic, cinnamon and more. Strecker said she comes up with a new flavor an average of once a week. Walking into Bella la Crema, customers are invited to sample Strecker’s many butter flavors.
Tastings are served like an ice cream sample, since eating the butter on a cracker or slice of bread distracts from the flavor, Strecker explained. “I want people to have just the experience of the butter,” she said. “It’s a really interesting conversation piece because it involves so many different elements of how we think about eating.
” While Strecker encourages eating butter by itself, her products still pair well with all kinds of food. Savory flavors can be used as a finishing butter on top of roasted vegetables, and the sweet “Mayan Chocolate Muse” flavor is one of Strecker’s favorite additions to coffee. Strecker said she loves watching people’s faces when they try her butter.
Often, she said, their eyes will light up as the taste reminds them of some family recipe or dish from their past. “The thing about butter is, because it melts, it’s like wine tasting in slow motion,” Strecker said. “You can literally sense and taste every single thing that’s in this butter.
It gets people really emotional.” Strecker’s plans for the near future include adding holiday flavors to her lineup and introducing “body butter,” which is packed with protein for bodybuilders. She also hopes to establish more locations – proper butter bars – in Colorado.
Strecker churned butter for the first time at 5 years old. From her store’s name to her passion for high-quality food, Strecker is committed to showcasing the beauty of butter. “That was my mantra: ‘I’m going to make butter beautiful again,’” Strecker said.
“This isn’t just about selling butter, there’s a whole philosophy behind it. I want to educate people.” Bella la Crema is open 11 a.
m. to 6 p.m.
Wednesday through Friday, and 10 a.m. to 4 p.
m. Saturday and Sunday. For more information, visit bellalacrema.
com ..
