An array of knives sold by Element Knife Co. (Courtesy Element Knife Co.)
Elan Wenzel is carving a new showroom into LoHi.
The Denver chef-turned-business-owner said his knife shop, Element Knife Co., is moving into 1,000 square feet in the One Platte building at 1701 Platte St.
Element, which sells high-end chef’s knives and accessories such as aprons and sharpening stones, currently has a 500-square-foot storefront in the Stanley Marketplace in Aurora. Wenzel said he wanted a bigger location to expand the store’s offerings.
“With a lot of deep reflection and meditation, so to speak, I came to realize more potential and I can’t do it in a small space,” Wenzel said. “Every nook and cranny has something crammed into it.”
Elan Wenzel
On Platte Street, the 46-year-old plans to add a testing station, offer classes such as knife skills or sharpening, and maybe even have his chef friends host cooking skills classes. He said he’ll also eventually hire staff. Right now, he runs the business — which he said did $410,000 in sales last year — by himself.
“We want to take it to the next level,” Wenzel said. “We want to support and educate. I think people are hungry for learning things and unique things.”
Wenzel is joining the coffee shop Kaffe Landskap and The Olive Tiger, a hair salon and bar, on the ground floor of the five-story One Platte building, which was developed by Nichols Partnership and Shorenstein Properties and completed in 2022. Its office tenants include tech firm Velocity Global and gambling company Bet365.
Wenzel got into the knife business more than a decade ago. The Louisville native trained as a sushi chef in Japan in 2004, then returned to Denver to work at a sushi restaurant. Every few months, he said, a guy would come in with a suitcase of Japanese knives to sell to the chefs.
Over time, Wenzel became friends with the seller, Ted. They eventually partnered up and sold knives to chefs around the state. Wenzel took over when Ted decided to retire.
“In those very early days, I started thinking more and more and looking at this as an opportunity,” Wenzel said. “I knew I didn’t want to live the life of a traveling salesman, but I didn’t really have the vision. The future wasn’t clear of what it should be.”
The One Platte office building at 1701 Platte St. in Denver on Aug. 3, 2023. (BusinessDen file)
While still working as a chef, Wenzel decided to pivot and start selling custom knives before eventually expanding and rebranding to Element Knife.
In 2019, he decided to quit his job and commit to Element. He opened in a small stall in the Broadway Market food hall in Denver a week before COVID-19 shut down the country.
“My dreams, the hope you build up, was kind of shattered,” he said. “I was like, well s***, what do I do?”
Wenzel said he took random jobs once the pandemic hit, helped his parents on their farm, and sharpened local chefs’ knives for free. Broadway Market closed indefinitely, which turned into permanently.
But, Wenzel’s luck turned around. He said Stanley Marketplace co-owner Mark Shaker, who was also part of the Broadway Market ownership group, offered Element Knife a spot at Stanley in November 2020, and it’s operated there since.
“I was just very lucky, in a lot of ways, with the progression of things,” he said. “I’m not business trained, I’m just a chef that had an idea and took a chance.”
An array of knives sold by Element Knife Co. (Courtesy Element Knife Co.)
Elan Wenzel is carving a new showroom into LoHi.
The Denver chef-turned-business-owner said his knife shop, Element Knife Co., is moving into 1,000 square feet in the One Platte building at 1701 Platte St.
Element, which sells high-end chef’s knives and accessories such as aprons and sharpening stones, currently has a 500-square-foot storefront in the Stanley Marketplace in Aurora. Wenzel said he wanted a bigger location to expand the store’s offerings.
“With a lot of deep reflection and meditation, so to speak, I came to realize more potential and I can’t do it in a small space,” Wenzel said. “Every nook and cranny has something crammed into it.”
Elan Wenzel
On Platte Street, the 46-year-old plans to add a testing station, offer classes such as knife skills or sharpening, and maybe even have his chef friends host cooking skills classes. He said he’ll also eventually hire staff. Right now, he runs the business — which he said did $410,000 in sales last year — by himself.
“We want to take it to the next level,” Wenzel said. “We want to support and educate. I think people are hungry for learning things and unique things.”
Wenzel is joining the coffee shop Kaffe Landskap and The Olive Tiger, a hair salon and bar, on the ground floor of the five-story One Platte building, which was developed by Nichols Partnership and Shorenstein Properties and completed in 2022. Its office tenants include tech firm Velocity Global and gambling company Bet365.
Wenzel got into the knife business more than a decade ago. The Louisville native trained as a sushi chef in Japan in 2004, then returned to Denver to work at a sushi restaurant. Every few months, he said, a guy would come in with a suitcase of Japanese knives to sell to the chefs.
Over time, Wenzel became friends with the seller, Ted. They eventually partnered up and sold knives to chefs around the state. Wenzel took over when Ted decided to retire.
“In those very early days, I started thinking more and more and looking at this as an opportunity,” Wenzel said. “I knew I didn’t want to live the life of a traveling salesman, but I didn’t really have the vision. The future wasn’t clear of what it should be.”
The One Platte office building at 1701 Platte St. in Denver on Aug. 3, 2023. (BusinessDen file)
While still working as a chef, Wenzel decided to pivot and start selling custom knives before eventually expanding and rebranding to Element Knife.
In 2019, he decided to quit his job and commit to Element. He opened in a small stall in the Broadway Market food hall in Denver a week before COVID-19 shut down the country.
“My dreams, the hope you build up, was kind of shattered,” he said. “I was like, well s***, what do I do?”
Wenzel said he took random jobs once the pandemic hit, helped his parents on their farm, and sharpened local chefs’ knives for free. Broadway Market closed indefinitely, which turned into permanently.
But, Wenzel’s luck turned around. He said Stanley Marketplace co-owner Mark Shaker, who was also part of the Broadway Market ownership group, offered Element Knife a spot at Stanley in November 2020, and it’s operated there since.
“I was just very lucky, in a lot of ways, with the progression of things,” he said. “I’m not business trained, I’m just a chef that had an idea and took a chance.”
