Walking through ReKaivery earlier this month, Amber Graves scanned the shipping container's shelves.

They had been growing increasingly well-stocked since Graves — the owner of Bellvue's Ummbers Ice Cream — started supplying the mobile food hub with cups of her small-batch ice cream back in July.

A little more than a month since opening its doors at Odell Brewing Co., ReKaivery's counters burst with chunky heirloom tomatoes, onions, potatoes and peaches. You could often find bouquets of fresh flowers tucked into its corners, bottles of kombucha lining its refrigerated shelves and locally-raised meat filling its freezers.

For Graves, who spent last summer selling her ice cream at local farmers markets, ReKaivery felt like an extension of those weekend mornings. There they were — the local goods typically found under summer farmers market tents — within the four walls of ReKaivery's four-season food hub, which seeks to connect Fort Collins consumers with their local food system.

But just as quickly as ReKaivery opened, it's now having to think outside the box — or, more specifically, outside its shipping container — to meet Fort Collins' city code.

Citing ReKaivery's wheeled base as not street legal, the city recently determined that the shipping container doesn't qualify as a vehicle and, therefore, can't be considered a mobile outdoor vendor. While ReKaivery has applied for an outdoor vendor license, one had not been granted to the business yet, according to Paul Sizemore, Fort Collins' director of community development and neighborhood services.

The way the shipping container is set up also doesn't allow it to easily leave and return to Odell, which is required as no outdoor vendor can remain onsite for longer than 12 hours per day without a minor amendment and successful modification of that rule, Sizemore said.

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Since ReKaivery is currently considered by the city as a building instead of a vehicle, it would need to apply for a building permit and certificate of occupancy to safely operate as an in-person shop, Sizemore added.

For these reasons, the city issued an order Monday requiring ReKaivery be removed from Odell's property within 48 hours. ReKaivery and the city have since reached a temporary solution where the shipping container can stay on the Odell property and sell goods via a window service model or from tents sent up in front of its shipping container. The public is no longer allowed inside the shipping container.

ReKaivery founder Audrey Welsh said she was "extremely surprised" to open her computer Monday morning and see the emailed order from the city.

"If anything, we've been overcommunicating with them and asking for direction," she told the Coloradoan Wednesday.

After learning about ReKaivery having to change its operations, Graves said she was "a little mad."

"Here's this great idea that someone's actually doing, not just talking about it," Graves said. "I get that you have to have rules, but it sucks when bureaucracy gets in the way. It's kind of like a cop shutting down a kid's lemonade stand."

Born out of Colorado State University's Impact MBA program in 2020, ReKaivery started with the idea of a year-round indoor farmers market stocked with homegrown produce and locally-made goods.

The concept sought to connect consumers with the area farmers who grew their food, while also giving local growers a chance to make larger profits off their products.

When ReKaivery opened its doors near Odell last month, its shelves started filling with items grown or produced within 75 miles of Fort Collins, with a majority of products coming from suppliers located within five miles, ReKaivery Marketing Director Austin Lammers told the Coloradoan in July.

By the time of its July opening, ReKaivery's original plans of having a fixed location had changed. Due to some roadblocks, Welsh said ReKaivery ultimately decided to add specially designed wheeled dollies to the base of its shipping container so it could operate as an outdoor mobile vendor and set up temporary home bases at various Fort Collins businesses.

Welsh said she worked with both the city's zoning department and CDOT to confirm ReKaivery's dollies would be acceptable. She also contends that given what she calls the city's "vague" definition of a vehicle, she still believes ReKaivery is in compliance.

Per Fort Collins city code, a vehicle is defined as, "a device capable of moving itself, or being moved, from place to place upon wheels or endless tracks."

Welsh said she had ReKaivery's wheelbase manufactured "to please code" and to allow for a lower base that better fits its ADA-compliant ramp. When the shipping container has been moved in the past, it's been done so with the help of CDL professionals, Welsh said.

"It’s been frustrating since we do meet the current definition (of a vehicle), and I wouldn’t have made this investment if I wasn’t ill-advised," said Welsh, who estimated that ReKaivery's sales will be nearly cut in half since shoppers can no longer enter the shipping container to shop and will instead rely on ReKaivery staff to grab them good from its fridges and freezers. The business also decided to pay for an online shopping portal to make up for having to nix in-person shopping, Welsh said.

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City staff consulted with Fort Collins Police Services and confirmed with the manufacturer of ReKaivery's dollies that they are designed for on-site maneuvering only and cannot legally be used to move on public streets, making them unable to fit the city's definition of a vehicle, according to Sizemore.

"Exemption from the building code isn’t a trivial issue. The building code is one of the city’s most important public safety tools, and its rigorous standards make sure the buildings we live and work in are safe," Sizemore said in an email to the Coloradoan. "We take this distinction between vehicles and structures seriously, and make sure that the things we call 'vehicle' truly function as vehicles in order to be exempt from building codes."

To be able to operate as it would like to, ReKaivery would need to secure its outdoor vendor license, meaning it would need to fully convert its shipping container into a street-legal vehicle and complete a minor amendment through the city, Sizemore said.

Welsh is currently planning just that as she works to get a new wheelbase designed, manufactured and installed onto the shipping container, she said. If ReKaivery can operate as a vehicle and move freely to and from Odell, it can also honor the city's rules that allow vendors to stay on approved sites for no longer than 12 hours per day.

Speaking to Fort Collins City Council during its public comment section Tuesday, Welsh voiced her frustrations over working with the city — calling the process "extremely unfair" and Fort Collins' code vague and open to different interpretations based on who you spoke to within different city departments.

"For the two years that we’ve been inquiring about this, our wait times to have a meeting or sometimes even get on the phone with someone was six weeks, on average," Welsh later told the Coloradoan. "We were really put on the back burner."

"We followed everything with positive intent and when we got that email (ordering the removal of ReKaivery) it sounded like we hadn’t been working with them for the last two years," she added. "I’m such a rule follower, I can’t even jaywalk so it really hurts me when they’re quick to point their finger and shut things down without even taking any accountability for where we are and how we got here.”

ReKaivery will remain open at Odell using window service and outdoor shopping for the next three to four weeks, operating from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday until its new wheelbase is installed and it is officially approved as a vehicle and licensed as an outdoor vendor, Welsh said.