Hours before the dinner rush begins, cooks, servers, bartenders and dishwashers gather for a family meal — a pre-service tradition that gives the staff a chance to slow down, share food and connect before the pace picks up.

At ’ Capitol Hill “Block,” where Mizuna, 225 E. 7th Ave., Luca, Vesper Lounge and Salita sit side by side, it����ap a ritual employees look forward to as much as dinner service itself.

Four days a week, Mizuna daytime sous chef Gerry Perez, whose tenure started with the Bonanno group at its inception 25 years ago, cooks for roughly 75 staff members. He transforms pantry staples and seasonal ingredients into everything from fragrant curries and veggie-packed pastas to sheet pan pizza. His legendary “Gerryladas” — an enchilada dish so beloved it earned its own nickname — have become the stuff of restaurant lore.

“Family meal is a big deal around here,” said Jacqueline Bonanno, who co-owns Bonanno Concepts with her husband, chef Frank Bonanno. And after over two decades of Perez pouring love into those pre-shift dinners, it����ap easy to see why.

At many dining establishments, family meal doubles as an unofficial test kitchen. Cooks take turns stepping away from the regular menu to try new techniques, showcase favorite recipes or transform odds and ends from the walk-in into something memorable. Every now and then, those staff-only dishes prove too good to keep behind the kitchen doors.

That creative spirit is alive at MAKfam, 39 W. 1st Ave., which has been serving elevated Chinese comfort food since 2023. Chefs Kenneth Wan and Doris Yuen rotate family meal duties among the line cooks, giving everyone a chance to flex their creativity. “Family meal is an opportunity for our chefs to cook something that interests them and showcase their skills,” Wan said. “It helps foster creativity and gives our chefs a platform to show their fellow coworkers what they are capable of.”

That freedom has already produced menu-worthy dishes, including chef de cuisine Liana Amica’s chilled tofu salad with silken tofu, cucumber, heirloom tomatoes, cilantro and black vinaigrette. Another staff meal favorite, a rich mapo tofu prepared by Aimee Zheng of Panda Bao, previously on staff at MAKfam, also spent time on the menu.

At Champagne Tiger, the French-American diner and queer community space that opened in Denver’s former Tom’s Diner, 601 E. Colfax Ave., in 2024, family meal serves as both a daily reset and a proving ground for new ideas.

“Family meal is one of the ways we create community within our restaurant,” said chef Josh Hood. “It����ap time to take a break together from daily service,” while giving young chefs and expos a chance to practice using food scraps creatively, experiment with new dishes and sharpen their skills.

Some of those experiments make the leap to diners’ plates, too. Pasta dishes first tested during family meal have later appeared as weekly Pasta & Piano specials, proving that the next standout menu item might begin as a platter shared around the staff table.

The same spirit of experimentation carries over at Sắp Sửa, 2550 E. Colfax Ave., a modern Vietnamese restaurant that recently celebrated its third anniversary. There, husband-and-wife chefs Anthony “Ni” Nguyen and Anna Nguyen encourage cooks to make the most of whatever ingredients are on hand. A fried tofu dish topped with a fragrant scallion, ginger, chili and bonito sauce became such a hit during family meal that it graduated to the menu for months before evolving into a version featuring crab.

More recently, cooks Ben Ward and Nova Lopez transformed leftover ingredients into a Middle Eastern-inspired spread of pork patties, tzatziki and cucumber-tomato salad using ingredients destined to be used up before the next delivery.

“Family meal can be an easy thing to write off as a nuisance, or just something that needs to be done,” Anna Nguyen said. “They took it and made it great.”

For Zuri Resendiz, family meal is about making sure everyone working at his restaurant has a moment to pause.

At nearly two-year-old , the chef-owner of the intimate eatery known for its inventive blend of Central and Southern Mexican and Peruvian flavors makes a point of feeding his five-person team at the end of every shift. On slower nights, everyone can sit down together. When the restaurant is busy, Resendiz waits for a lull in service, then sends employees to eat in turn, insisting they take a real break rather than grabbing bites between tasks.

“We have the privilege of making whatever they want,” he said. One night that might mean ramen; another, tacos or quesadillas. Family meal has also become a launching pad for new ideas. A birria grilled cheese dreamed up by sous chef Heriberto Sosa has become a perennial staff favorite and will likely land on a future menu, while a Colorado lamb huarache made the jump from family meal to special before earning a permanent place in the restaurant����ap lineup.

But for Resendiz, the meal itself matters more than what����ap on the plate. When he sees cooks or dishwashers trying to eat standing up, he stops them.

“Bro, take a seat,” he tells them. “You have to take the time to really enjoy it because we don’t know what����ap gonna happen tomorrow.”

Gerry’s Sheet-Pan Pizza

The Bonanno Group restaurants always have plenty of dough and fresh cheese available for menu items, so sous chef Gerry has made Tuesdays a favorite with his sheet-pan pizza, usually served alongside a crisp green salad tossed with a simple homemade vinaigrette.

Ingredients

Dough

8 cups high-gluten flour

4 cups cold water

3 tablespoons sugar

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

¼ ounce fresh yeast

Gerry’s Favorite Toppings

Crushed San Marzano tomatoes

Pepperoni

Diced serrano peppers

Fresh mozzarella from Luca

Parmigiano Reggiano, for dusting

Directions

Mix all ingredients in a mixer with the dough hook for 8 minutes. Divide the dough in half and roll each half into a ball. Place on a cookie sheet and let proof in the refrigerator for 4 hours (preferably overnight).

Roll out dough on a sheet tray and let it proof on the counter for one more hour.

Bake at 450 degrees F for 10 minutes, remove from oven, and top with your favorite toppings. Return to the oven for 15 to 20 minutes, until the cheese is melted and the crust is golden brown.

The aguachile and guacamole appetizers, tacos and horchatas at Mister Oso had tasted good enough. But her bill included something she hadn’t expected: a 20% service charge.

It wasn’t a tip, the disclaimer on the receipt explained, although Pomorski was welcome to leave one of those in addition to the service charge. Rather, “The 20% service charge on your check enables us to fairly compensate every team member who contributes to your experience. Thank you for helping us uphold an equitable pay model.”

Was it equitable, though? “And to whom?” Pomorski, a 45-year-old communications consultant, wondered. “I don’t understand the pay model. … I couldn’t determine if it’s something that’s fair to the staff.”

The outing left a bad taste in her mouth, Pomorski said. She and her husband went for tacos at a different restaurant.

Years after they were introduced as a way to keep employees paid and the lights on in the throes of the Covid-19 pandemic, service charges remain as divisive as ever among customers and employees at Denver restaurants, many of whom debate them on social media and in online forums like Facebook and Reddit. Dozens of restaurants use them, including major operators like Culinary Creative Group (Mister Oso, Kumoya, Bar Dough, Magna Kainan); Bonanno Concepts (Osteria Marco, Mizuna, Luca); City Street Investors (Union Station, Schoolyard Beer Garden) and TAG Restaurant Group (Guard and Grace, Hashtag).

Those who do appreciate that they are allowed to use them to help cover a wide variety of costs, whether that’s paying non-tipped staff like cooks and managers, buying raw materials or tackling health care premiums and credit card fees. But others prefer to stick with the traditional method of American tipping. The harshest critics, typically employees and diners, say they are inconsistently applied, sneaky and confusing — especially when it comes to whether the fees cover tips or not.

Colorado has attempted to rein in service fees in multiple industries using legislation; much of it focused on the housing sector, but restaurants are also required to disclose mandatory charges as part of a law that went into effect this year.

But confusion persists. After two recent lawsuits were filed by restaurant workers over the issue, the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment plans to return to the issue this summer in response to a plea from the attorney for two of the plaintiffs, a department spokesperson told the Denver Post last month.

“It’s the nickel-and-diming.”

Like a lot of restaurateurs, Frank Bonanno introduced service fees during the pandemic as a way to keep paying employees of his fine-dining restaurants Mizuna, Luca and Osteria Marco, who were earning less while social distancing rules were in effect.

But the 22% “Creating Happy People” struggled to make anyone happy once Covid rules relaxed, including servers who were used to tipping. One at Osteria Marco sued the restaurant last year in Denver County District Court, alleging stolen tips and a lack of transparency. The case was later settled.

Now Bonanno veers on the side of caution. “We’ve reworded everything to make it a little more clear, so that guests understand exactly where everything is going,” he said. “It’s just more transparency, I guess, is what it really caused.”

Sixty percent of the collected fees go to servers, 25% goes to the kitchen, and 15% stays in-house, Bonanno said.

But transparency remains an issue in many people’s minds. When Maureen Corley showed up for a tryout interview at one of Bonanno’s concepts earlier this year, she wasn’t encouraged.

“Even though it is written in itty-bitty font on the front of the menu that it’s not a gratuity, [servers] aren’t really encouraged to say that it’s not a gratuity,” said Corley, who now works at another restaurant without service charges.

Exactly how much of the money is distributed to which purpose isn’t explained. In fact, the Colorado Restaurant Association doesn’t encourage its members to be that explicit.

In a memo it sent earlier this year, the industry group told restaurants that: “You do NOT need to detail the percentage distribution of the service charge (ie, 5% to back-of-house, 10% to front-of-house, 5% to administration, etc.).”

Denver attorney Adam Harrison, who represented the server in the Osteria Marco case and another in a lawsuit against Culinary Creative Group, which was also settled, laid out the problem in a March interview with The Denver Post.

“A lot of customers in Colorado think that the service charge that they pay is going to the people who serve them, when in fact there are a hundred different things that restaurants are calling a service charge,” Harrison said at the time for a story on the settlement with Culinary Creative Group. “If you go to 20 different restaurants around this state right now, you’re going to find the service charge is done differently at every single one of them.”

Harrison declined to be interviewed for this story.

The Denver Post attempted to contact the owners of more than a dozen restaurants to share the breakdown of their disbursements. Several declined to comment, with some worrying about potential backlash online. Others declined to speak through publicists or did not return calls.

But here are some of the ways restaurants describe their fees on websites or menus.

Stoney’s Bar and Grill has a 2.5% fee that its website says goes to “general restaurant operations.”

American Elm, a restaurant in the Highlands, applies a “5% living wage fee to all tabs that goes directly to our back of house staff,” according to its menu online. LoHi restaurant The Hampton Social lists an 18% service charge on its menu, all going to “service staff.”

Leven Deli and Leven Supply, two popular counter-service restaurants, charge a 10% service fee and pay their employees minimum wage, according to their websites.

Dear Emilia and Restaurant Olivia, upscale Italian restaurants that share management, list a 20% service charge split among staff “in an equitable manner.”

City, O’ City and Watercourse Foods, sister vegan restaurants in Denver, use service charges.

So does Kawa Ni, a Japanese restaurant that employs a 20% surcharge for hourly employees.

The Schoolyard Beer Garden in Denver, one of the adaptive reuse concepts spearheaded by City Street Investors, charges a 20% service fee and does not accept tips. The Edgewater Beer Garden, which it also owns, lists an 18% fee online. Vendors inside Union Station charge a “Historic Preservation Fee.”

At Molino Chido, Uncle and Hop Alley, restaurants owned by chef Tommy Lee, the service charge applies to takeout orders, a model he implemented at the start of the coronavirus pandemic. The 15% fee helped pay staff since customers weren’t dining in and tipping as much, he said.

“Psychologically, it’s the nickel-and-diming, I think, that’s wearing on people,” Lee said about service charges in general. “Why don’t you just tell me the price I’m going to pay before I decide? I think that’s what the law this year is trying to figure out.”

“Service should be about serving the customer”

Simeran Baidwan refuses to add a service charge to checks at Little India Restaurant & Bar, his small chain of Indian food restaurants. “You’re going to make the consumer run away and go somewhere else,” he said.

An adherent of the traditional service model with tipping, Little India’s Baidwan said it’s a turn-off for customers to see an added fee on their receipt. “Did I really get that experience? Was there really a ‘wow’ factor there?” he asked. “It’s really up to the customer what kind of experience they’re having in order to give the right gratuity to the right server who took good care of them.”

Instituting the “Creating Happy People” fee led to quite a bit of employee turnover at Bonanno’s concepts, he said. Now he brings it up during every job interview. “There are bartenders and servers that just want to go in, work a station, get their tips and leave,” Bonanno said. “This system isn’t for that. This is a system where it’s more team-oriented.”

Corley said service charges have contributed to “complacency” among servers in the restaurant industry. “I’m not sure how the plot got lost since Covid,” the 34-year-old bartender and server said. “Service should be about serving the customer.”

After attempting to find legal clarity on service charges and their prescribed uses through the courts, Harrison contacted Kristina Rosett, a director with the Department of Labor and Employment, asking the state to weigh in. A spokesperson for the labor department last month said they received Harrison’s request and would be taking it under consideration.

“We intend to hold a listening session over the summer to gather broad stakeholder input on this topic and others of interest in the restaurant industry,” department spokesperson Jessica Smith said in a statement.

“If the Division determines that administrative rulemaking on this topic or others is warranted, this session will be followed by the steps required by state law, which include a public hearing and notice and comment process on such matters,” she added.

Sam and Tricia Maher grew up and lived in Sydney and Melbourne before moving to Denver and opening their vegan restaurant, Somebody People, in 2019. They now employ about 20 people, all of whom are paid per hour above minimum wage.

It was their staff who sought a service-charge model during the Covid-19 pandemic, Tricia Maher said. At the end of a meal at Somebody People, the server places the bill on the table and explains that a 20% service charge is included and that is shared with the front and back of house.

The added cost of service more closely resembles the way business is done in Australia, she said.

“Everybody is getting paid what they should or what is agreed upon for that role,” she said. In Australia, “hospitality has always been a livable wage and tips were never expected or assumed on top of that.”

Their fee is largely accepted and acknowledged by their clientele, she said. Rarely does a customer raise an objection.

“The transparency is the biggest thing, in my opinion. We’re not trying to hide anything. We’re trying to just give you the price.”

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Romyo (stylized Rōmyō and pronounced ‘roh-me-oh’) is the newest restaurant from Bonanno Concepts, the hospitality group owned by Frank and Jacqueline Bonanno. Inspired by Mizuna, the pair’s first sit-down restaurant, Romyo will combine the two cuisines the Bonannos have explored since Mizuna opened 25 years ago.

“It’s Rome to Tokyo,” Bonanno told The Denver Post. “Drawing from what we do at Mizuna, what we do at Luca and kind of marrying them together.”

Romyo will move into 1401 Larimer St., the former home of Ted’s Montana Grill, which closed in 2023 after 20 years.

The menu at Romyo is still in the works, and the Bonannos are headed to Japan for six weeks before the opening, a trip likely to revitalize their approach in the kitchen, Frank Bonanno said. But he has dipped into “Itameshi” dishes in the past, . His restaurant group took the concept one step further with Dumplin’, which opened last year in Highland Square and counts both dumplings and lobster ramen on the menu.

“Japanese and Italian food are very similar. There’s a lot of crossover that can be done,” Bonanno said, adding that it is similar to how Mizuna combines French and Asian cuisine. “They are so harmonious.”

Both countries value noodles and both use vinegar in an important capacity, he said. What are dumplings if not ravioli, he asked.

The Bonannos are familiar with Larimer Square, having run their garden-level Italian bistro, Osteria Marco, just down the street, at 1453 Larimer, since 2007. They also operated Green Russell and Russell’s Smokehouse, which lasted on the block for 12 years before construction in the Larimer Square area forced a restaurant exodus in 2022.

Larimer Square visitors may be confused by the wallpaper that covers the windows of the new restaurant. It teases the upcoming opening of Kiso, a Japanese restaurant first announced back in 2024 whose tenants ended up vacating the property. Bonanno confirmed their exit, though he was unfamiliar with the details.

Romyo isn’t the only restaurant planning to open in Larimer Square this year. The owner of Som Dee Thai Kitchen & Bar, Orrapan Botthaisong, is planning her downtown debut at 1442 Larimer St., next to The Capital Grille.

During that time, Bonano became known as one of the city’s most ambitious restaurateurs, with an empire that has ebbed and flowed over the years and includes or included Osteria Marco, Green Russell, Luca, Vesper Lounge, Milk Market and Bones.

His latest is Dumplin’, an Italian and Pan-Asian fusion spot that opened Nov. 7 at 3609 W. 32nd Ave. It’s where he and his wife, Jacqueline, spent the better part of a month transforming the space from their now-closed sandwich joint Salt + Grinder. It serves small plates, skewers, ramen and dumplings full of things like wagyu and black truffle, and house-cured nduja.

One of the notable menu additions is the lobster ramen, the same one that helped make Bonanno’s name, back when he was running Bones from 2008 to 2019. Bones was a ramen joint, but Bonanno inflected classic Asian dishes with his own personal touches.

“Originally we were going to call this Bones 2.0,” Bonanno said about Dumplin’. “But then Jacqueline and I asked ourselves, ‘Why would we go backward?”

Johnny Rodriguez, who spent six years working at Bones, works in the kitchen, and Bonanno is on the line as many nights as he can be — he prefers the life of a chef to that of a restaurateur. “If I could only cook I would be very, very happy,” he said.

But Dumplin’ is clearly its own thing. “Not until the day I had opened this place had I ever served dumplings,” Bonanno said.

He also wants to be careful about cultural appropriation — saying he looks at dumplings more as a ravioli. And that’s how he serves them. The on-table chili oil is infused with Calabrian chiles, and there’s balsamic instead of black vinegar. The hand-pressed dumpling skins are made with Caputo “00” flour, which is typically used in pasta-making.

“I’m not going to compete with Yuan Wonton. I’m never going to make as good a wonton as them,” he said about the James Beard-nominated spot across town.

When pulling up a chair at the 26-seat establishment, take note of some of these dishes:  the hamachi crudo with Leche de Tigre Salmoriglio, and the razor-thin slices of house-cured copa with wasabi crema, which provide an excellent glimpse into Bonanno’s meat curing program. (Bonanno ages meats on-site in a basement curing room.)

Dumpling offerings include standouts like the shrimp scampi and the mascarpone and mushroom with togarashi cabbage. Those who came to feast should close with the Cacio e Pepe ramen. There may not be another dish that is so thoroughly emblematic of the place.

But on Sunday, the Bonanno Concepts restaurant group announced on social media that the decade-old lunch counter at 3609 W. 32nd Ave. in the Highland Square area had closed.

“Thank you for a decade of great Jersey sandwiches. It����ap been an honor. I got to bring a taste of my childhood to my neighborhood. How great is that?” the post reads. “I’m ready for a different adventure now. Aren’t you? Because I have something delicious planned for November. Stay hungry. Stay thirsty. See you here. Love Frank.”

In an interview with The Denver Post, Bonanno said it was time to move from the sandwich restaurant and to revamp the space. The new concept is “something I’ve been noodling on for a couple of years. I think it is something that will fit the neighborhood.”

Bonanno didn’t want to provide more details until he has solidified his plan, but he hopes to reopen with a new name in early November.

Bonanno Concepts has undergone significant changes in the past two years. It closed Green Russell and Russell’s Smokehouse, both in Larimer Square, in 2022 after 12 years due to construction in Larimer Square; it sold the five-year-old downtown Denver food hall Milk Market in 2023; and it took over and then relinquished management of the El Rancho restaurant in Evergreen in 2024.

Bikers & Bakers will sell “a variety of signature hot dogs,” Thursday through Saturday, “including Elk Jalapeno Cheddar Sausage, Wild Boar Sausage, and a Bacon Cheddar Brat, with toppings ranging from classics to cream cheese and caramelized onions,” according to a statement from Sage Hospitality.

Those are some of the same flavors Pittenger once made at Biker Jim’s.

On Saturday mornings, Pittenger will dish out lemon ricotta pancakes, sour cream waffles and other breakfast items from the Lou’s Hot & Naked food stall in the market.

Pittenger started Biker Jim’s as a food cart on the Sixteenth Street Mall, eventually opening a standalone restaurant at 2148 Larimer St. The company later licensed its name and food for kiosks at Coors Field, Empower Field at Mile High and Ball Arena. In 2021, Pittenger sold the company to then-friend Andrew Soulakis in return for shares in Soulakis’ holding company. But he stayed on as the president.

But in July, Ball Arena owner Kroenke Sports & Entertainment sued Biker Jim’s for unpaid fees and evicted its food stall. That prompted Pittenger to leave the company he founded and criticize how it is currently being operated.

Denver Milk Market, which is part of the Dairy Block, 1800 Wazee St., also said Friday that it has created two new food concepts and added a game room (with free Skee-ball, a shuffleboard table, PAC-MAN and more) as part of an overall “refresh.” The new food concepts are Bos Butcher & Deli, offering burgers and Mediterranean food, and Fuso, a pizza and pasta shop.

The food hall was founded in 2018 by longtime local restaurateur Frank Bonanno (Mizuna, Osteria Marco, Vesper Lounge, Salt & Grinder). He sold the operation to Sage Hospitality in September 2023, though, saying the aftermath of the pandemic had decimated foot traffic.

Denver-based Sage owns numerous hotels, restaurants and bars in Denver and elsewhere, including the Cruise Room, Poka Lola Social Club, Milepost Zero, Call Me Pearl, Kachina Cantina, the Oxford Hotel, the Maven Hotel, the Rally Hotel and the Crawford Hotel.

Bikers & Bakers will be open at Denver Milk Market Mondays-Wednesdays, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m,; Thursdays 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Fridays, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.; and Saturday for pancakes from 9 a.m. to noon.

Updated at 3:34 p.m. Friday, Aug. 16, 2024: This article was updated to correct the spelling of Poka Lola Social Club’s name.

Now, Bonanno is out.

“Bonanno Concepts will no longer operate El Rancho Colorado as our vision and values differ from the rest of the current investor group,” the company, which owns Luca, Mizuna, Osteria Marco and other restaurants, told The Denver Post. “We wish them the best in their new approach and look forward to refocusing our attention on our Denver-based restaurants.”

In 2022, El Rancho closed amid the ownership battle, and the Colorado Department of Revenue seized the property for failure to pay more than $90,000 in taxes. Commercial real estate developers Jack and Sherry Buchanan of Northstar Ventures and Travis McAfoos of Piedra Peak Properties partnered to purchase the famous destination in 2022 and enlisted Bonanno Concepts to help reopen and operate the restaurant and brewery.

Bonanno served “comfort food and celebratory Western fare” alongside the restaurant’s homemade beer. He also added his controversial but mandatory 22% , which can be found at all of Bonanno’s concepts, to all customer checks.

It’s unclear who will be taking over operations. El Rancho did not respond to a request for comment prior to publication.

“…El Rancho ended its relationship with Denver-based Bonanno Concepts, which includes the termination of their CHP fee (mandatory tipping),” . “You’ll continue to see familiar faces – Sam, Cap, Maggie, Jimmy and others – along with our largely local staff who are excited to welcome you back, introduce our new chef, and show off our new menu (coming soon) featuring locally- and regionally-sourced, fresh foods. We’ll offer lighter menu options for the warm days ahead in addition to the Western faves you know and love.”

El Rancho, located at 29260 US-40, originally opened in 1948 as a cafe and trading post, and because of its prominent location on U.S. 40, it became a popular gift shop and post office. To this day, it maintains its own exit from the highway.

“…El Rancho is excited to honor our heritage and celebrate being part of the community for over 75 YEARS (76, to be exact),” the Facebook post continued. “It����ap been a bumpy ride, no doubt – brings to mind the bumpy wagon and stagecoach rides that early pioneers took to get to this neck of the woods in the first place! We live in the mountains. We can handle a few bumps…”

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�����dzܳ�:��Friends Reilly Chunn, 38, and Chris Dominey, 39, have known each other since they were 15, and the duo has wanted to open a wine and cocktail lounge for years. The idea for the Velvet Cellar was born over a couple of drinks. Dominey, a sommelier, is working toward his Level 4 Diploma in Wines and wanted a platform to share his education, while Chunn has a background in business.

The Velvet Cellar is taking over the former Chow Morso Osteria space downtown, which closed in November 2020 after two years, and it was previously home to the Squeaky Bean for five years before that. It will be an upscale, yet approachable, wine and cocktail lounge with a chef-driven menu.

“The landlord has purposely left the space vacant for so long because he’s been fortunate enough to be selective on the lease,” Chunn said. “Luckily, he was willing to take a chance on us.”

Who’s cooking: Chef Todd Bobrovicz has worked his way through the Denver food scene over the past two decades, from opening The Corner Office to his time at City O’ City. Most recently, after working for Denver restaurateur Frank Bonanno as head chef at Osteria Marco, Bobrovicz was a consultant for new local restaurants.

“I’m a country boy from Oklahoma, and Reilly and Chris both are both Southern boys from Alabama, so it was love at first sight,” Bobrovicz said.

What’s on the menu: Everything on The Velvet Cellar’s menu will be made from scratch, even its cheeses, like ricotta, mozzarella and burrata, and cured meats. Bobrovicz wanted the food to pair well with the wine program, which will boast between 300 and 400 different labels.

For a pre-dinner snack, try the restaurant’s take on a Scotch egg: a fried Scotch olive stuffed with homemade ricotta, wrapped in dry-aged beef and Spanish gourd and served with a smoked tomato cream sauce and Calabrian chile honey, which pairs well with a martini or dry white wine. If you’re looking for a full meal, dig into Bobrovicz’s version of steak and frites: a tender Coulotte steak served with a side of Peking duck fries, which are cooked in duck fat, tossed in an eight-spice mix and topped with duck cracklings.

And as an homage to the chef and owners’ Southern upbringing, there will be a take on shrimp n’ grits with red corn heirloom cheddar grits, sauteed shrimp and pepper-infused country gravy.

“Downtown Denver could use a fresh kick-in-the-pants like us right now,” Bobrovicz said.

�Ѵǰ���:��The Velvet Cellar is taking advantage of the historic building it inhabits, using the existing exposed brick and wooden support beams in its design. There’s also a nod to the name with velvet banquette seating throughout and thousands of wine bottles on display.

�����Ծ��Բ�:��Chunn and Dominey are aiming for a mid-November opening. Updates to come.

Note: This story previously stated that the space has been vacant since the Squeaky Bean closure in 2016 and has since been updated.

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Take Meta Asian Kitchen (now called MAKfam), which started at Avanti Food & Beverage before moving out to open a standalone spot, or The Budlong, which drew enormous lines at Zeppelin Station before expanding in Denver. Currently, Black Box Bakery in Edgewater Public Market has gained a huge following, as has Lunchboxx at Denver Central Market.

These days, the 20 or so food halls in metro Denver range in style, vibe and price point, and include Avanti, Edgewater Public Market, Denver Central Market, Zeppelin Station, Stanley Marketplace, Freedom Social, Grange Hall and the Golden Mill.

In the past year, however, three of the most high-profile halls — The Source, Grange Hall and Milk Market — have changed hands. For some people in the industry, like restauranteur Jared Leonard, the sales are a sign that the market has become oversaturated with these dining destinations.

“Food halls, the ones that were popular before there were so many of them, had cool restaurants that otherwise wouldn’t build restaurants downtown because downtown was too expensive,” said Leonard, who owned The Budlong, and now runs A.J.’s Pit Barbecue, Au Feu Brasserie and Grabowski’s Pizza, which operated inside The Source until recently.

Now, it’s no longer a “build it and they will come-type concept.” With so many food halls, they’ve become less interesting, “and there aren’t enough good restaurants,” he said.

But food hall operators across the metro area say the recent sales — two of them to out-of-state companies — aren’t indicative of a larger problem with the model. They were simply necessities brought on by the pandemic, a slow summer or specific problems, like construction. In fact, most are optimistic about the future and believe food halls are only going to become more popular.

At least one business analyst agrees. Technavio Research forecast in that the global food hall market is expected to grow by $71.69 billion between 2021 and 2026.

“If a food hall is run well, if it����ap activated, if you have it structured correctly, then there’s no reason why it can’t be incredibly successful,” said Adam Larkey, the chief operation officer for Zeppelin Development, which owned The Source and still runs Zeppelin Station.

Recent food hall sales in Denver

When longtime Denver restaurateur Bonanno opened Milk Market in 2018, it was a somewhat novel idea: all 16 concepts inside the food hall were his.

That included a pasta shop, a salumeria and restaurants specializing in Nashville hot chicken, poke and bao buns, as well as a couple of bars. Not only was Bonanno a proven name — his restaurants, including Mizuna, Luca, the Vesper Lounge and Osteria Marco, are some of the most well-known in Denver — but Milk Market was located in a hot area between Coors Field and Union Station.

Then came the pandemic, and Milk Market����ap lunchtime crowds dipped by 70% to 80% as office workers stayed home. By 2023, business had picked up somewhat, but not enough, and last month, Bonanno sold Milk Market to Sage Hospitality, a well-funded Denver-based hotel and restaurant company that also owns the nearby Maven Hotel.

So would Bonanno do it again? Yes, with the right partnership and landlord, he said. “Food halls aren’t dead. I think there’s a place in the right environment. It����ap just hard when you’re downtown. You need huge density, and we don’t have that downtown right now.”

Troy Guard is another well-known Denver chef and restaurateur who got in and out of the food hall game fairly quickly. In 2019, he bought a 13,000-square-foot former restaurant in Greenwood Village and began turning it into Grange Hall, which featured a few of his own eateries, along with a brewery and concepts from other chefs. But by the time Grange opened in 2021, the world had changed.

“It was challenging,” Guard said. “Not a lot of people came back to the offices (post-pandemic) … Also, there used to be 120 concerts a year at Fiddler’s Green nearby, but there were only 10 to 15 in our first year. When you plan your performance around things like that, it really throws things off.”

Guard sold Grange Hall (which has since been renamed Cherry Creek Food Hall) in December 2022 to Houston-based RCI Hospitality Holdings for $5.2 million; the publicly traded company owns 26 restaurants and strip bars around the country, including several in Denver, but was interested in Grange Hall as a vehicle to introduce its Bombshells brand, a sports bar concept similar to Hooters or Twin Peaks.

“We weren’t interested in selling, honestly, but RCI came back to us three different times, and each time they did, the price was more and more and more,” Guard said.

RCI has since opened a small-format version of Bombshells in Grange Hall, which David Simmons, the company’s director of restaurant operations, said has brought in a whole new sports crowd. Bombshells “has actually done really well there,” Simmons said. “It����ap exceeded my expectations of what we thought we would do with that small footprint.”

RCI plans to open two standalone Bombshells locations in the near future, one in the former Oceanaire Seafood Room downtown and one in the Southlands Town Center in Aurora.

The first of the food halls to sell, though, was also the first to open: The Source Hotel + Market Hall. In August 2022, Los Angeles-based Stockdale Capital Partners bought the complex at 3330 Brighton Blvd. from Denver’s Zeppelin Development for $70 million.

“The final years when we owned The Source, we were dealing with more external pressures, like Brighton getting torn up for nearly three years, construction on the hotel and COVID,” said Zeppelin Development����ap Larkey. “We were incredibly proud of the culinary lineup we brought in there. We signed Temaki Den in 2020; we had Safta, one of the best restaurants in the city, Smok, and Reunion Bread. You’d be hard-pressed to find a culinary lineup like those four.”

Since the sale, there have been a couple of market hall closures, like Grabowski’s and Bellota. But Grabowski’s Leonard said it was a lack of parking that pushed him out, not the change of owners.

Ismael De Sousa, who owns Reunion Bread inside The Source, said he might be next as his business has slowed down dramatically (even before an oven fire in his bakery reduced his product capacity) after a string of closures in the market hall.

“The places that are staying, like Safta, Temaki Den, us and Smok, have a product that exceeds the average of Denver, so people are willing to drive and come to us, but there’s no constant steady flow of traffic,” Sousa said.

Stockdale Capital Partners didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Industry veterans and newcomers

Even though Zeppelin Development sold The Source, the company is holding on to its other RiNo food hall, Zeppelin Station, which it opened in 2018.

“Inherently, the fundamentals of a food hall are sound and stable and should mitigate a lot of the typical pressures in the restaurant industry, like labor, food costs and rent,” Larkey said. “It����ap almost like culinary co-working, where the cost burden is spread out.”

Over the years, Zeppelin has figured out strategies to keep visitors enticed, like seasonal holiday bars, pop-up food concepts, such as Sandoitchi, and a changing rotation of vendors.

Over in Arvada, Freedom Street Social, which opened in 2022, suffered through a slow summer, according to founder and food hall newcomer Nick Costanzo. He attributed that to families who were traveling again after the pandemic rather than hanging out around town.

“You have these pretty big highs and lows, and it����ap hard to control the costs on those days,” he said. “We kind of got the rug pulled out from us a little, but now we’re climbing back into it.”

To fill the gaps, Costanzo courts school-related events, like fundraisers, reunions and holiday parties as an additional revenue source.

But as the first food hall in Arvada, he is still working to educate people on the concept. “Now that we have a little bit of a road map for these events, we’re making those bigger and better and relying on what we did last year and what was fun for people,” Costanzo said.

Unlike Freedom Street Social, which relies on young families nearby for business, Denver’s Avanti caters to tourists and 20- to 30-year-olds, said managing partner Patrick O’Neill.

The LoHi food hall debuted in 2015, and O’Neill said it actually has come out stronger on the other side of the pandemic in contrast to some other local operators, and he said the same for its Boulder location, which opened in September 2020.

“We’re not going anywhere, and we hope to be here a long time,” O’Neill said.

O’Neill feels strongly about the future of food halls, but even though the company has been approached by developers to open more locations, he doesn’t plan to jump on one unless it appears to be the exact right location and demographic. “We want to create landmarks … and make sure they’re in killer locations where we know our customer base,” he explained.

Farther west, Arielle Israel, co-owner of Black Box Bakery, is thrilled by her spot inside Edgewater Public Market. It has constant foot traffic, she said, and a built-in community, which has been “a huge plus for a business like ours, just starting out in the retail side of things.”

“What����ap unique about Edgewater is they’ve done a great job of being the center of the community and providing a lot of activation for the public, like movie nights and yoga,” Israel said.

“Market halls do have a place in the future, it just depends on how you integrate them into a community. People always want to gather. That’s never going to change.”

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The prominent Denver restaurateur has sold the food hall he opened in 2018 in the Dairy Block project at 1800 Wazee St. to Sage Hospitality.

Denver-based Sage, which owns and operates the Dairy Block’s Maven Hotel, took over operations Aug. 10.

“Our sales were half of what they were before the pandemic,” Bonanno told Thursday. “It just economically did not make sense anymore.”

Bonanno said he and Walter Isenberg, CEO of Sage Hospitality, have known each other for 30 years. They both said the deal was a mutual decision, and said discussions about a sale started in June.

“They’re better equipped to deal with something that big,” Bonanno said. “They’re a big organization, so they probably see things and are able to fix things we’re unable to. They have a lot of experience behind them.”

“We wanted to make sure the legacy of that business remained intact,” said Walter Isenberg.

In addition to the hotel, and now the food hall, Sage operates two restaurants — Kachina Cantina and Poka Lola Social Club — in the Dairy Block. It also operates dozens of other hotels and restaurants in Denver and other markets.

Bonanno said he’s wanted out of the 17,000-square-foot hall since the pandemic, when lunch sales, previously the Milk Market����ap busiest hours, evaporated. Even with more people back in offices, he said, it����ap still an inconsistent crowd.

“When there’s not a consistent flow of people like we needed, that����ap what becomes very challenging,” Bonanno said. “It varied widely, just week to week.”

At most food halls, the various stalls are individually owned and operated, and the food hall owner runs a central bar. At the Milk Market, however, all 16 stalls were owned and operated by Bonanno — and now by Sage.

Bonanno said he originally wanted the food hall to operate more like a market, where more people would pick up fresh produce or meat rather than meals, which is why he decided to own and operate all of the stalls.

“We just thought it would be more cohesive and that would be a … different take on the typical food hall,” Bonanno said.

Some of the concepts were new, like Albina by the Sea, while others had previously existed, such as Bonanno Brothers Pizzeria, which operated for a time in Park Meadows mall. Since its opening, he said he’s switched a few stalls, but the hall has largely remained the same.

Despite it being home only to Bonanno restaurants, Isenberg said Sage has no plans to change the food hall, stating it’ll be “business as usual.”

Bonanno still owns a number of Denver restaurants, including Mizuna, Luca and Vesper Lounge in Cap Hill. He recently took over the helm of the historic El Rancho in Evergreen.

Sage, Grand American and McWhinney developed Dairy Block.

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