Fairycakes food truck brings Dutch tradition to the Roaring Fork Valley

Nico Heins always knew his future didn’t follow the corporate path he was following in the late 2010s. 

Born in Amsterdam, Heins moved to the United States over two decades ago — but said he had a hard time finding the same comfortable culture he grew up with in a coastal Dutch suburb. 

“Growing up in Holland, there’s a lot of nature, and while I was in Chicago I was really missing that,” Heins said. “It was the concrete jungle for as far as the eye could see. If I wanted to go outdoors, I had to drive five hours until I got somewhere good.”

He found his way to the Roaring Fork Valley during the COVID-19 pandemic, working remotely at his corporate job — something he knew had a time limit. 

His new food truck, Fairycakes, began operating in the summer of 2026, and Heins feels as though he has finally found his calling.

“I really wanted to stay here in this valley and this region because people are really open-minded,” Heins said. “They are open to trying new things, and I know that everybody loves pancakes. I thought it would be really fun and really cool to bring a little bit of my culture from Holland to the area through a traditional street food.”

Fairycakes specializes in poffertjes — traditional bite-sized buckwheat Dutch pancakes that usually come topped with organic fruit and other ingredients like powdered sugar, honey and chocolate sauce. Heins, who grew up eating poffertjes, now wants to bring that nostalgia to a different market — one in a community where he wants to build his life. 

Heins isn’t the only authentically Dutch aspect of the new business, even if the recipe isn’t exactly what someone would find on the street in Holland. 

“I had to figure out a recipe that worked with all dry powder — milk, eggs, butter — so I had to amend the recipe a little bit from what you would normally make for your family, so it has that authentic artisanal flavor to it,” Heins said. “I also imported the cast iron griddle from Holland, because I wanted it to be as authentic as possible, and I flew my friend in from Holland, who painted the entire cart in a traditional Dutch blue painting style. It’s all authentic — from the owner to the griddle to the recipe to the art on the cart. I want to bring something whimsical to the valley, something a little different.”

After a couple of soft openings, the new Roaring Fork food truck made its grand debut at Mountain Fair and was a smashing success — even if the cleanup proved memorable.. 

“I held some parties here at the house for some friends so I could see how it was all running and do some refining,” Heins said. “My biggest challenge remains to be my batter. I have yeast in the batter, and when yeast heats up, it eats the sugars and messes up the batter. My batter sort of acts up, especially when it’s 99 degrees out like it was at Mountain Fair. 

“I thought I had devised this plan where I could have 20 squeeze bottles full of batter to try and stop the rise,” he added. “When I opened up the fridge, there was a moment where it was literally a gushing volcano out of the squeeze bottles. It was a lot of cleanup, but Mountain Fair was fantastic; it was just smashing. Especially for the people who didn’t know what a poffertje was — it really showed the community was open to trying new things.”

Heins quickly learned that filling squeeze bottles wasn’t the solution, so he returned to a more authentic style of making the poffertjes — something he calls the “blobber.” 

“Now, I just fill up the blobber so I don’t have any more batter explosions; it’s all contained in one,” he said. “The cooler temperatures will also help, because it won’t rise as much and as fast.”

The cooler temperatures should help with more than his batter problems. Heins said that poffertjes are traditionally a winter treat in the Netherlands. 

“I think it’s perfect for the winter; they’re traditionally a winter treat,” he said. “They bring them out to the markets in the winter, and it’s almost like going to a sandwich shop. There will be a small cart on the corner selling poffertjes, and it’s really a nostalgic experience. I hope the kids of this generation will remember Fairycakes.” 

Heins said it’s difficult to comprehend how much his life has shifted over the past year. Through it all, the dream of opening Fairycakes kept him moving forward. 

“I was let go from my career in October, and by Thanksgiving I realized if I didn’t do anything I wasn’t going to be able to stay in the valley,” he said. “I was mulling over what to do, and I had a lot of life changes going on. It was really important to me to figure out something I could do to contribute to the community, so by the end of November, I had custom-ordered my cart from China.”

After months of waiting through a lackluster winter, and while the cart was halfway through its trans-Pacific journey, Snowmass finally got a powder day. 

“So it’s one of the only powder days of the year, I’m over on this little gully by Sheer Bliss, and it was just the wrong time, wrong moment, and I collided with a ski school kid,” he said. “I broke my leg in multiple places, and had to get surgery that day. I had titanium in my leg, sitting in a hospital bed, and the only thing I could think about was how I could get that cart from Denver over the mountains with a broken leg.”

Painful as it was, Heins’ broken leg was almost a blessing in disguise. He had to cancel his early summer plans, but the injury gave him time to prepare the business for when he could get back on his feet.

He spent nearly every waking minute of the six weeks bedridden working out the logistics of his new business, including figuring out how to power a 220-watt Dutch griddle from an American outlet that only puts out 120 watts. 

“Luckily, I had some friends who knew some friends, and they were able to pick up the cart once it arrived in Denver, put the wheels on there, and haul it up here,” Heins said. “I still couldn’t walk, so all my planning for the summer I just had to put on hold. I was just absolutely focused on all the logistics. All the paperwork, the tape, getting the car hitched — you name it.”

He said that without his determination to get the cart running, Fairycakes might still be in development. 

“Six weeks after surgery, I was walking without crutches. It wasn’t pretty, but I was just so determined to get the cart up and running before the end of summer,” he said. “I wasn’t in time for Strawberry Days or the summer music series, but I’m really proud of how it all came together.”

Beyond sharing a piece of Dutch culture with his new community, Heins said one of his favorite things about the new business is that, although pancakes aren’t the healthiest thing in the world, the poffertjes don’t drip with grease. 

“I wanted to provide something that’s not just super greasy,” he said. “It is more than a pancake, and it has a bit of a health component to it. There are nuts, honey, berries, and it’s made of buckwheat flour, which is gluten-free.”

For more information about the new Roaring Fork Valley food truck, visit fairycakes.co.

Original reporting from postindependent.com