There s no question that the restaurant industry is still struggling as the coronavirus pandemic rages on. But a mild winter and the partial reopening of dining rooms has made January just a little more bearable than December. Still, many eateries are choosing to stay closed until Denver has better patio weather, more widespread vaccinations and safer projections from government agencies.
Despite the challenges, few restaurants decided to call it quits permanently last month. The Denver Diner and Hearth & Dram had already closed, but in January revealed their decisions to officially throw in the kitchen towel permanently. While the Denver Diner had operated at partial capacity from June to November, it closed for good on November 20, when dining rooms were declared off-limits; the owners have left room for the possibility of opening in a new location in the future. Hearth & Dram never reopened after closing in March, though it originally planned to make a comeback this spring. But
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