Denver extends restaurant seating in streets, sidewalks until 2022
Courtesy of SideCar PR)
Denverites are getting another year to eat and drink in public right-of-ways.
In conjunction with a larger announcement about his administration’s post-pandemic economic recovery plan, Mayor Michael Hancock said Wednesday that the city will extend its program permitting restaurants and bars to expand outdoor seating for another year.
The program turned parking lots and sidewalks into additional seating for restaurants struggling with coronavirus capacity limits. In a few cases, entire streets have closed for a block.
The program was to expire in October, but will now last through at least October 2022, Hancock said.
Lea Jane s Hot Chicken debuted at Avanti Food & Beverage a year ago, giving chef/owner Nick Graves barely a month to make a splash with his Nashville-style hot chicken sandwiches and other Southern fare before the pandemic shut down dining rooms across Colorado. But Graves stuck it out with takeout and delivery until Avanti reopened at partial capacity, and now that he s had a chance to give Denver a taste of his cooking, he s expanding Lea Jane s wingspan.
A second location of Lea Jane s will soon open at 1441 26th Street in RiNo, taking over the former home of Biju s Little Curry Shop, which closed in fall 2019. We ve had our eye on the spot for a long time, but COVID kind of shut everything down, Graves says.
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Zeppelin Station
Zeppelin Station, located next to the new rail station at 38th and Blake Street, is a transit-oriented development designed around a ground-floor market and retail hall with office space above. With transit, hotels, restaurants, and concert venues all within walking distance, Zeppelin Station serves as a social destination for the rapidly evolving River North (RiNO) neighborhood.
The form of the building was motivated by the desire to capitalize on views of the downtown while shielding the occupants from the activity of the directly adjacent freight rail lines.
On the eastern façade, a billboard-like screen made of standard light
At the end of every year, we compile a list of all the restaurant and bar openings and closings over the previous twelve months. As 2021 approached, we expected our roster to be a devastating record of the toll that the coronavirus pandemic took on the industry.
And yes, there were many closings in 2020 around 120 in all, including both longtime favorites like El Chapultepec, the 20th Street Cafe, Racines, Vesta and Zaidy s Deli, and newer starts such as Euclid Hall, Old Major, Julep and Biju s Little Curry Shop. (We did not count restaurants that have gone into hibernation, such as Coperta and Beast + Bottle, in our tally.) But surprisingly, the numbers weren t that different from previous years. In 2019, we recorded slightly more than 120 closings, while 2018 came in at nearly 100. In fact, predictions for the restaurant industry have been dire for the past three or four years, primarily because of oversaturation, the increase in labor costs and the high price of real estate
Namkeen Is Spuntino’s New Ghost Kitchen
Owners of the beloved Italian spot in Highland reincarnate their South Indian restaurant with a full to-go menu and a family-style feast for al fresco dining, too. Denise Mickelsen •
December 11, 2020
Cindhura Reddy, the chef and co-owner of Spuntino on West 32nd Avenue in Highland, grew up in Cleveland, where South Indian food was always on her family’s table. “My parents moved here from Hyderabad [now in Telangana, formerly Andhra Pradesh] when they were in their 20s,” she says, “and when I was growing up, we sponsored a couple of aunts and uncles that would come live with us. Cooking was a full family endeavor.”