Quick Bites Around Town
Let’s go over to the food aisle and catch up on some Downtown restaurant news. Some you know, some you may have missed.
Dixon’s Downtown Grill is closing on Labor Day. The owners are consolidating their efforts at Racine’s where they own the building and the parking and do a lot of business. Good luck to them. We hate to lose Dixon’s. No word yet on what may go in there, and it’s a large space.
Across the street at 16th and Wazee, Gumbo’s is going south…about the end of October. That space, though, is already spoken for…by The Kitchen from Boulder. Very successful there, and very confident here as they have signed a 20-year lease for this space.
But, for a while, it does look like one of the busiest intersections in LoDo will sport two large empty or closed spaces and two parking lots. We can do better.
About a block away, Organixx closed last week. The block of Blake between 15th and 16th does a lot of food business. But, Organixx could not get their share of it. Consistency of quality became a consistent problem.
Back at the space formerly called the Rocky Mountain Diner, 18th and Stout, Ghost Plate & Tap is “coming along well” according to our source. This joint venture of Wynkoop and Breckenridge Brewing is doing a strong weekday lunch business and “working on the evening segment” we’re told.
Over towards the DCPA, Baur’s has closed at 15th and Curtis and is to be changed to Le Grand Bistro & Oyster Bar by the people from Argyll in Cherry Creek (which is itself moving to the Baker Neighborhood). Same people who had Brasserie Rouge a few years ago in the Ice House. Always good to have good French food in the neighborhood!
Close to Downtown, Uptown Brothers Brewing, Grant and East Colfax, closed on Sunday for good. Finances and the economy got the best of them after just over a year. Recently, they proudly displayed a large banner on the street: “Best Hamburger in the 300 Block of East Colfax”. We didn’t get there in time.
And, Big Game, Wazee between 16th and 17th where we fondly remember Il Fornaio, is changing hands this week. Sold. Employees say that it will continue as Big Game. We wonder, though, as recent reports put noted restaurateur Charlie Palmer making his way to a LoDo location and some people think this is it. If that is true, it’s hard to imagine it continuing the way it is…trying to decide between being a sports bar or a restaurant. Seems strange to walk by there at prime time on Friday night in LoDo, more than once, and see the place virtually empty. More to come on this story.
And, last bite. Dean’s Urban Market will open one day this week at Market and Park Avenue West. Another, and welcome, food store for Downtown residents! And, we bet they don’t sell Slurpee’s.