Beatrice & Woodsley has been closed since the start of the pandemic, but the several dozen Aspen trees that lined the South Broadway restaurant live on.
New owners Mike Huggins and his wife Lenka Juchelkova decided to keep the urban forest that brought in many admirers over the years. The couple, who also own Arvada Tavern, Union Lodge No. 1 in downtown Denver, and The Tatarian on Tennyson Street, are opening La Forêt, a cocktail-forward French restaurant in the former Beatrice & Woodsley space at 38 S. Broadway next month.
“This is what South Broadway needs, not more dive bars that make up most of the presence now,” Huggins said. “We want to bring a more elevated crowd back to South Broadway, and I couldn’t think of how else to transform that space. Kevin [Delk] did a great job already.”
Kevin Delk opened Beatrice & Woodsley, a woodland cabin-themed wine bar with an upscale dining room, in the Baker neighborhood in 2008. The Aspen trees, which Delk transported from around the state, were situated to look like they were growing from the floorboards in the cozy restaurant. Delk still owns plant-based tropical restaurant and cocktail bar Bang Up to the Elephant!, which he opened in 2018, in Cap Hill.
Huggins and Juchelkova had wanted to open a bar on South Broadway prior to the pandemic, and Delk helped put the couple in front of the landlord for the Beatrice & Woodsley space after he closed up shop in 2020. Huggins said he never likes to replicate a concept, so he wanted to put his own French twist on what the space allowed for.
La Forêt, which means “the forest” in French, will lean into the visual experience that the Aspen trees provide. Huggins said cocktails will be experiential, like the “La Forêt” signature drink. Green tea will be poured over dry ice hidden within a mossy structure that the drink will sit on, and steam will permeate through the moss to create a woodland visual.
The menu will focus on game meat, like duck and elk tenderloin, with a French twist. Look out for dishes like “stag frites.”
“Prior to the pandemic, we noticed how all these French legacy restaurants had come and gone and wondered why no one was really pushing traditional French cuisine anymore,” Huggins said. “So we had our own plans to open a Monaco-inspired spot. But of course since then, we’ve seen a resurgence with great spots like Jacques and Noisette.”
Huggins and Juchelkova stepped onto the local bar scene when they took over Arvada Tavern in Olde Town Arvada in 2012. They revived the 1930s-era bar to its glory days and incorporated a Prohibition theme. In 2015, the couple opened Union Lodge No. 1, a cocktail bar with a focus on pre-Prohibition drinks, in downtown Denver, and two years later, they debuted Tatarian, a craft cocktail bar with a focus on blending spirits, on Tennyson Street. They previously owned Kline’s Beer Hall in Arvada, which they shut down during the pandemic.
