3 Kings Tavern owners Jeff Campbell and Martin Killorin recently bought the Pit Stop Tavern, a bar at 5110 West Colfax Avenue, just inside Denver near the border with Lakewood.
Campbell first learned that the Pit Stop was on the market when he followed up on a Craigslist ad that stated nothing about the property other than the owners' contact information. When he met them and found out the bar was on the southeast corner of Colfax Avenue and Sheridan Boulevard, he was amused: He and his wife have long referred to the intersection as “the Hot Corner,” since there’s a lot going on there, and he’s driven by many times on his commute to 3 Kings.
“We go there, and I see the room,” Campbell says. “And I’m like, ‘Holy crap, this place is amazing!’ It was just like when I walked into 3 Kings for the first time, and we were actually at 3 Kings to talk to them about buying another bar they had, and he looked at me and said, ‘We might sell this bar.’ And I got this feeling. And I got it again inside of the Pit Stop.”
As West Colfax grows, Campbell hopes he can be at the forefront of the neighborhood's transformation with the Pit Stop.
“We definitely saw a lot of that on South Broadway when we opened 3 Kings,” Campbell says. “When we did that, I don’t think we, by any means, turned South Broadway around, but we absolutely established a strong beachhead and a foundation to keep going, to keep what was already happening there going. I think we can do that on West Colfax. Illegal Pete’s is going over there. Little Man Ice Cream is going over there. The Alamo Drafthouse is already over there. There’s a lot of opportunity.”
Campbell says that the 100-person bar and music venue is an awesome room with a great layout. Right off the bat, his team installed a new PA. The Pit Stop will begin hosting live music again on the weekends and expand from there, he adds.
“I don’t think places like that necessarily do well if you just dump money into them,” Campbell explains. “You have to dump time and love and effort. You have to cultivate this garden that you’ve planted. You can't just go dropping full-grown corn plants. It doesn’t work like that. We’re just going to cultivate and keep spreading the Denver love. There’s a lot of opportunity in this town.”
Like 3 Kings, the Pit Stop will begin bringing in most types of music, and, Campbell says, “I’m going to continue to do everything as long as myself or my people can find quality in it."