Longtime Melanzana employee and Melanzana sponsored athlete, Smokey Burgess and his dog Manny, take 1st place in the Rocky Dog Trail Run at the 2014 Go Pro Games down in Vail!

Check out Manny’s bling – Wahoo!!

Thanks to all who participated in Saturday’s Vintage Melly Contest, so many great folks stopped by!  Amusing flashbacks. . .

And the Winner is. . .

JOHNNY McGREW  |  Sporting his 19 year old “Eggplant 200 Longsleeve”! Now semi-retired to Brazil, Johnny was the local pharmacist for years, and also a rad  ultra runner.

Our 20th celebration was a bit nuts!

The Lions Club, one of Leadville’s most active charities, preparing for battle. They ended up cooking and serving 425 free hot dogs in 1.5 hours:

Purple and green balloons were distributed to all the other downtown retailers that joined us in the sidewalk sale:

We rolled the sale racks out onto our sidewalk at 11AM. Mayhem ensued:

The line for the register was out the door, down the sidewalk, and past

Amazing! It’s been 20 years since Fritz moved to Leadville with two sewing machines in the back of his two-wheel-drive Nissan pick up. He soon found an office upstairs in the Bank Annex building on East 5th Street. We were called “Eggplant” back then, and there was no Polartec fleece to be seen anywhere. Our earliest products were GORE-TEX gaiters, overmitts and custom bibs for climbing and skiing. Since those dreamy days in 1994, Melanzana has slowly and cautiously evolved into a downtown Leadville institution.

On Saturday May 31 we will celebrate those 20 long years, and thank our local customers