By early 2020, only two of the original Denver Tavern bars and restaurants will remain open, with five others closed for good or slated for remodeling and rebranding.
Tavern Platt Park on South Pearl Street will close Tuesday, Dec. 31, BusinessDen . Owner Frank Schultz sold the building at 1475 S. Pearl St. earlier this month for $4 million.
Next up, the Tech Center Tavern location will shutter in February and reopen sometime in the summer after rebranding as Otra Vez Cantina.
Schultz told The Denver Post this fall that his Tavern concept was not only aging but facing business challenges like increasing property taxes, a steady labor shortage and the prospect of a minimum wage hike starting in the new year.
Schultz closed Tavern Downtown as well as neighboring Cowboy Lounge in October. Last month, Denver City Council approved the minimum wage increase to $12.85 in 2020 and $15.87 in 2022.
The recent spate of Tavern closures , which closed in 2018. The Tavern Uptown . Schultz says he would like to reopen it as a Tavern, which opened in 2002, since it was the brand’s first location.
But it will likely be modernized like Schultz’s newer concepts, Otra Vez and Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. For now, the remaining Tavern locations in Littleton and Lowry are open.