See also: - Paul Reilly opening Beast + Bottle in the Cherokee on 12th Avenue space - Beast + Bottle's Paul Reilly one of only eight chefs in the world to win the Jean-Louis Palladin Work Study Grant - After 28 years, Cherokee Dining on 12th Avenue will close on October 14
Reilly was moving forward on the project -- and moving forward with his menu, much of which will be designed around fish. In fact, he recently spent several days in Maine, fishing, thanks to a Jean-Louis Palladin Professional Work/Study Grant he received, and it was when he returned from Maine, just before Thanksgiving, that he made the decision to pull the plug on the Cherokee space. "The good news is that my trip to Maine exceeded my expectations, and I think we're going to offer guests some really unique seafood choices that no one else in Denver has right now, but the bad news is that I pulled out of the Cherokee lease because of insurmountable construction costs," says Reilly.
The space, he adds, "needs a lot of work, and considering everything we wanted to do to renovate it to where it needed to be, we just couldn't justify how much it was going to cost." He cites, for example, the need to enlarge the water line to support things like sinks and toilets, which, notes Reilly, would have been "really expensive."
But while he bid farewell to that plot, Beast + Bottle will absolutely open, promises Reilly. "The concept will be exactly the same, and we've spent the past three weeks looking for another place to make this happen, and we're confident that we're going to find a great space really soon." In fact, divulges Reilly, "We've been meeting with the landlord of another space, and things are looking good, for sure."
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