Name: Ely Corliss
City of residence: Greeley
Occupation: Owner of the Moxi Theater, Stella’s Pinball Arcade & Lounge and Spotlight Café & Creamery
Tell us about your different business ventures.
I’m the proprietor here at the Moxi Theater—part of that is Stella’s Pinball Arcade & Lounge here in downtown Greeley—and the new Spotlight Café right here at 802 9th Street. In 2013, I started the Moxi Theater, and that is downtown Greeley’s independent arts and entertainment venue. Live music and comedy are our main focus of programming, but we’ve hosted everything from weddings to wakes there and everything you can imagine in between. We do a lot of programming similar to what you’ll see at places like The Fox Theatre, Boulder Theater or the Aggie Theatre in Fort Collins. We route with venues that I book up in Wyoming quite a bit, and we’re always trying to attract national and local talent to do all-ages concert experiences.
Stella’s Pinball is something I opened in 2021 after the pandemic. We had long-time tenants down in the basement of the Moxi Theater building—Batter Up Cakes had moved away, and I had an opportunity to lease out the basement. I have a great relationship with my landlord here, and we spawned the concept of Stella’s. It really is a very unique spot, and a pinball arcade is just about the only thing that would work down there I’m pretty sure. It’s been a great use of the space. It’s been very successful.
Here in 2025, I just opened up where we’re sitting now, which is the Spotlight Café. We’re going to be focusing on not only wonderful coffee and quick bites—bagels and breakfast burritos—but we’re doing ice cream here. So well into the evening, we’ll have soft-serve and hard-dip ice cream, Blizzard-type offerings, a real banana split and affogatos—if you’ve ever had espresso with ice cream, it’s a whole new experience in my life.
How did you become so passionate about each of these ideas?
I never really planned on getting into the coffee shop business or the arcade business. I saw the space, and being a tenant since 2013 here in downtown Greeley, I’m obviously pretty familiar with the neighborhood and its needs. It has been a labor of love and a product of opportunity. I don’t know that I would ever have thought to do a pinball arcade had I not had the availability, seen that space and thought about how it could be developed. Similarly, [Spotlight Café] has been everything from an office space to a coin shop to a paranormal shop to a yoga studio, which all had different challenges in this space, being underneath a concert venue and above an arcade. I remember the yoga studio: We finally chased them out after enough sound checks.
What do you love about living here in Northern Colorado?
I think Greeley is a wonderful place to live and raise a family. I’ve enjoyed sending my kids to school here and enjoy all the wonderful things that downtown has to offer as well as the close proximity to places like downtown Denver. I really think it’s one of the last undiscovered gems of the Front Range. I’ve been here for a decade now, and I’ve seen all the wonderful growth around here—obviously it ebbs and flows—but things are really starting to look a lot different than they did 10 years ago.
If you were showing someone around Greeley for a day or weekend, what would you take them to go do?
I would definitely start downtown: everything from the LINC Library to just walking through Lincoln Park. During the winter, the light show they have at Lincoln Park is an awesome attraction down here. Usually when I bring friends from out of town, it revolves around a show at the Moxi, some tacos and tequila next door at Luna’s or some pinball. I’m a little bit biased to those. There’s really great food: There’s an Indian place across the street, there’s a new Thai place right back here that just opened, there’s a new ramen shop down the street and a new barbecue place just moved in across the street. So it really is an entertainment district, and I don’t know of anywhere I’d rather be.
What does sustainability mean to you?
Anytime I can, I like to focus with my staff on using reusable plastic wares and reusable dishes. Even at the Moxi Theater, nine times out of 10 we’re using reusable dishware. It’s not glass, but it’s a very high-weight plastic ware, and that’s something we’ve done from day one. There’s no reason to use 100 little plastic cups when we can easily just wash the dishes. Certainly here at the coffee shop, you can always get your drink in mug or glass. That’s certainly how I prefer to enjoy things when I go places: I always ask for the big bowl of latte. Just reducing waste in general is a big part of it. Restaurants and concert venues are notoriously wasteful. I wish there was more we could do.
Is there anything else you’d like to share?
If anybody who hasn’t checked out downtown Greeley, I’d definitely encourage them to try to make it a point to come visit—everything from one of our cool college nightclub bars on the street to our great dining options like The Rio, Luna’s or Smokin’ Dave’s across the street. There really is so much to do nowadays, and for families as well. The LINC Library is pretty incredible. Pinball is right downstairs, and there’s the Union Colony Civic Center across the park. The Moxi Theater does all-ages programming all the time: In March, we did a Moxi junior theater camp during spring break where we hired a couple of teachers from the Frontier Academy here in town to lead a camp for aspiring thespians. Diverse programming is the name of the game.
Follow us on Instagram for more NOCO Locals and interview videos! @nocostylemagazine
