Blue Bonnet expands its patio

Cinco de Mayo wasn't really patio weather after all -- a lucky break for the Blue Bonnet, the deceivingly named Mexican restaurant now finishing a patio expansion project that will increase its outdoor seating by 30 percent. "We're on the tail end of it," says owner Gary Mobell. "Weather permitting,...

By Patricia Calhoun

May 6, 2010

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Cinco de Mayo wasn't really patio weather after all -- a lucky break for the Blue Bonnet, the deceivingly named Mexican restaurant now finishing a patio expansion project that will increase its outdoor seating by 30 percent.

"We're on the tail end of it," says owner Gary Mobell. "Weather permitting, we'll be able to use it next week."

For the first third of its life, the Blue Bonnet didn't even have a patio; it gained one when it moved to its current location at 457 South Broadway eighteen years ago. "The enclosed patio was really our original patio," Mobell notes. "We added the outside patio." And now they're adding to it again, despite what he characterizes as "a challenging business environment."

"I'm optimistic about Denver, optimistic about South Broadway," he says. "Summer is great here. Hopefully, we'll be able to fill it up; hopefully, we'll be able to pay for it."

And this isn't the end of the projects, either. Next up: new bathrooms, which should come as good news for anyone who's ever answered the call at the always packed Blue Bonnet.

"We keep going and going," Mobell says. "I'm so grateful."

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Patricia Calhoun is editor-in-chief of Westword, the alt-weekly she co-founded in September 1977. She’s been inducted into the Colorado Press Association Hall of Fame, the Association of Alternative Newsmedia Hall of Fame and the Colorado Restaurant Association Hall of Fame. She’s also received dozens of local, state and national awards for writing, including first place for feature writing and first place for column writing with the Society of Professional Journalists. Patricia is a weekly commentator on Colorado Inside Out, PBS 12's public affairs roundtable, which has won two Emmys.

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