Tap & Burger has tapped out of Denver Tech Center.
The local chain, which was started by restaurateur Juan Padró with a Highlands location in 2010, served its last burgers and fries earlier this week at 4910 S. Newport St. in Denver, the founder of Culinary Creative Group told BusinessDen.
“Itap just not where we’re going as a company,” Padró said of Tap & Burger, which will remain operating in LoHi and Westminster.
“We’re very focused on growth concepts, like A5, Fox and Hen, Ash’kara, Aviano,” added Padró, who stepped down as CEO of CCG earlier this year but still remains involved in big-picture decisions.
The DTC restaurant did over $3 million in annual sales in its best years since opening in 2018, Padró said. But things have been dwindling since Peckish, a similar bar concept, debuted in the same building in September 2024. This year, sales were tracking in the mid-$2 million range.
Padró was frustrated with former building owner Holland Residential after it signed a lease with Peckish, saying that deal violated a noncompete clause in Tap & Burger’s lease. Holland sold the apartment complex to Chicago-based Equity Residential in 2024, public filings indicate.
Tap & Burger closed with one year left on its lease. But Padró said Equity worked with him because the company agreed that the noncompete was violated.
“Thatap why we were peacefully able to get out of this lease,” he said.
Padró had been looking to sell the space and lease before deciding to close altogether. Ironically, he had a deal with a dumpling concept fall through because Equity signed a lease with a different operator that included exclusive rights to have a Chinese restaurant within the building.
“We weren’t going to resign anyway, and thatap probably the case with a bunch of restaurants around there,” he said. “There’s no signage on Belleview. People don’t know itap there.”
Padró also blamed the rising minimum wage, rents and food costs for the closure. Those issues particularly impact this type of concept, he said, because consumers are more price sensitive.
“This type of restaurant, not locally but nationally, is struggling. Every inflationary product is on those menus: ground beef, avocados, eggs, chicken wings,” he said.
“Itap also a price-sensitive category,” he continued. “At a Denver burger joint, if you’re running it the way any normal business runs, burgers should be $25 bucks. But no one in Denver should pay that.”
Itap not the only recent CCG concept to close. Magna Kainan, a Filipino spot in RiNo, shuttered earlier this summer.
Padró also sold a former Tap & Burger in Sloan’s Lake last year to local sports bar magnate Stoney Jesseph, who runs a Stoney’s there now.
“This is a product of Denver, right?” Padró said. “It would be a fair statement to say virtually every independent restaurant in Denver is for sale for the right price. Nobody’s lining up to open here.”
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