Jess Liu is no stranger to hosting Chinese New Year celebrations. Before opening Creature Comforts Cafe in 2023, she’d put on festive gatherings at her home in Boulder and before that at her favorite Chinese restaurants in New York. She sees food and gathering as a central element of her family, both while she was growing up and now as she raises her two boys.
“Chinese New Year was such a special celebration for me growing up,” says Liu. “Lion dances, red packets—they were all just happy memories.”
But it wasn’t just the joy of the lion dance performances and getting red packets from elders that Liu remembers so affectionately. It was also the chance to cook all her favorite Chinese foods, like Lion’s Head meatballs (狮子头) and Mapo tofu or dofu (麻婆豆腐).
Every year, the Chinese New Year falls on the second new moon after the winter solstice, kicking off a two-week celebration. For 2025, the emblem is the Snake, which embodies astuteness, subtlety, and metamorphosis.
This year, Liu will host her second dinner in her cafe in partnership with Rising Tiger’s Devin Keopraphay, who is of Tai-Lao descent and runs what he calls an Asian-ish diner in Longmont, Colorado, known, in part, for their scallion pancake egg sandos.
On Saturday, February 1st, Liu and Keopraphay will do a ticketed, multi-course feast. The tasting menu event will include foods that are typical for celebrating the new year, like noodles for longevity and fish for prosperity, and will feature unique specialty items outside of Rising Tiger’s typical fare that customers and fans can’t get anywhere else. Keopraphay will do a riff on classic flavors, bringing some favorites to life and inviting guests to explore a new take on dishes they love.
For regulars of Creature Comforts Cafe, the event will feel like a transformation of the beloved space on Pearl Street. What’s typically a brightly lit cafe, full of plants, pops of green, and Salted Honey Lattes, will make room for dining tables, candles, and plenty of ambiance—leaning more into Liu’s fine dining background.
Creating space, especially one that can transform in this way, is very important to Liu, who’s dreamed of having her own since she was a little girl. Growing up, her family would go to a Chinese restaurant in Houston every Sunday for family dinner and also for special celebrations. It had a giant Lazy Susan for easy sharing and was foundational to her ideas around food and hospitality.
Liu majored in East Asian Studies in college and then spent her twenties in Japan and New York. She went to patisserie school, worked in fine dining restaurants, and eventually joined a restaurant group. She moved to Boulder in 2018 and sees Creature Comforts Cafe as a full-circle moment, which is why she’s poured so much of herself into the design, menu, events, and team.
Despite securing the lease for the space in the fall of 2021, it took Liu 408 days to get through permitting. Reflecting back on that time, she says it was a hard and painful road to opening, but the community was and continues to be incredibly supportive of her vision and business.
“I’m proud that people have found community and comfort here,” says Liu. “There’s so many places they can be, so it’s truly a gift that people decide to spend their time with us.”
Today, Creature Comforts Cafe serves as a gathering place for friends and family, coworkers and business partners, knitting and journaling groups, and, of course, people looking to celebrate Chinese New Year.
For tickets, visit CreatureComforts.Cafe