After two years in business in a nondescript spot at Broadway and Walnut Street in Denver, a lone coffee shop and eatery is closing its doors Monday.
Monkey Bean Coffee and Bistro at 2470 Broadway is going out of business. A new developer purchased the Ballpark neighborhood property and has raised the rent, said owners Monique Costello and Amy Rosewater. But the developer, Bahman Shafa, disputes their claims.
“The rent was 400 percent more,” said Costello, 37. “We did sit down with him, and he did say that he wanted to keep us here.”
Shafa, president of Focus Property Group, bought the property in April with plans to renovate the space for “neighborhood services,” such as a dry cleaner and a video store. Shafa also owns Where the Buffalo Roam in Denver and Boulder and Jackalope International in Boulder. He said he wanted to keep Monkey Bean where it is.
“They make it sound like a huge increase,” he said. “What they were paying was probably half of what the market rent was.
“We were really surprised that they didn’t feel they could afford that. I think they got tired of it and wanted to get out of it anyway, as they’re not professionals in the restaurant business.”
Rosewater, 31, a former software engineer, said that even if they raised prices 10 percent, “it wouldn’t have increased our profit.”
The pair started Monkey Bean two years ago, with their life savings and a $70,000 business loan. The shop sells fair-trade organic coffee and made-to-order sandwiches and salads. The owners personally forfeited wages for two years, opting instead to pay off the loan, which they finished repaying last month.
“We have nothing left. If we move to another location, we would have to rebuild, and we would be starting from scratch,” said Costello, a former multimedia producer.
Both said they didn’t know what they would do after the store’s closing and silent auction, in which they are selling the shop’s equipment, furniture and decorations. They are considering publishing a cookbook of Monkey Bean food.
Shafa said renovations would begin right away, although he doesn’t know what type of services would move into the space.
“We’re open to everything and anything,” he said. “We don’t have anything on the books right now.”
Shafa bought the 18,000 square feet of land from Bernie Papper, whose family owned the property for nearly 70 years.
“We decided that after a while the repairs and taxes and everything else was unbearable. When you get to that point, it’s better to let someone else with deeper pockets do it,” Papper said.
Staff writer Kimberly S. Johnson can be reached at 303-820-1088 or kjohnson@denverpost.com.
