After Morrison switched its official name to Tacos Tequila Whiskey, the business quickly expanded. At one point, there were three outposts in Denver and one in Arizona. But now there are just two, and soon there will be only one. The original Tacos Tequila Whiskey will serve its last tacos on February 24, leaving just the Highland location, at 3300 West 32nd Avenue.
"We had a rough year last year. I think the market is just saturated with tacos, especially in that neighborhood," Morrison says of the decision to close. "Sales have been declining. It really all comes down to sales."
But Morrison isn't giving up on the York Street space. "I really believe in that neighborhood. I believe in that location," he explains. "You gotta keep evolving or you're not going to be around." So with seven years left on the lease, he's excited to introduce a totally new concept: Rolling Pin Pizza, which is set to open April 5.
"I have a passion for tavern-style pizza," says Morrison, who grew up in an area of northwest Indiana known as the Region, where thin-crust, party-cut (or square-cut) pies are popular.
Recently, that pizza style has been growing in popularity in Denver, too, with spots like Grabowski's and Da Sauce that specialize in it, as well as places like Blue Pan that offer the style in addition to others.
"There's nothing gourmet about it, but we're going to put our spin on it like we always do," Morrison says of Rolling Pin's menu. He's been busy testing recipes for the sauces and the dough, which will be made using a 72-hour cold fermentation process before being rolled out using, yup, a rolling pin.
The idea started "down and dirty," he says. "It was just going to be pickup and delivery, a greasy spoon. But we have all this space." So now it's morphed into something more.
Rolling Pin will be open for dinner Wednesday through Sunday with a lineup of old-school pies with names like the Malort, topped with cupping pepperoni and red onion with a couple of shots of the notorious Chicago-made spirit on the side, along with the Pizza I Grew Up On, with ground beef, mushrooms and black olives. Both twelve- and sixteen-inch pies will be available.
There will also be four rotating new-school pizzas. "More creative pizzas, like one with truffle cream and steak tartare," Morrison explains. Those will be named as numbers, and the restaurant will keep a running recipe book on hand so favorites can be brought back or requested by guests.
Kevin Morrison is excited to bring the tavern-style pies he grew up eating to the City Park neighborhood.
Tacos Tequila Whiskey
Rolling Pin will also offer happy hour and a weekend brunch with an Italian-American spin on breakfast sandwiches built on focaccia rolls, housemade McDonald's-style hash browns and libations like red beer, another popular Midwest staple.
The service style will be what's been dubbed "fine-casual" — a more upscale spin on the fast-casual model that became a go-to in the last decade. That, in addition to a menu that's easier to execute, will cut back on some staffing costs — though Morrison does hope to retain any current employees who want to be part of the new venture. "So much labor goes into those tacos," he notes. "It takes almost fifteen people to run a taco joint on a weekend. ... Everybody is bitching about labor, but this is the new normal, and we all have to adapt or die."
Design plans include a rolling pin wall which will be built using donations. If you have a rolling pin to contribute, Morrison says it can be dropped off at the York Street location this week. Anyone who brings one will get either an invite to a pre-opening party or a free twelve-inch, one-topping pie after the restaurant opens.
The liquor lockers, which are paid for via a membership fee that goes to a charity, will remain in the space. Current members have first dibs on Rolling Pin lockers, and this year, the money raised will go to fund the college education of an employee whose mom was also a longtime Tacos Tequila Whiskey staffer and has been battling cancer.
Morrison also owns Fish N Beer in RiNo, which added a cover to its patio last year that has helped boost business. He's on track to open one more Tacos Tequila Whiskey this spring, too — inside Concourse A at Denver International Airport.
"It was tough," Morrison admits of the decision to swap out his longtime taco business for the new pizza concept. But "COVID has changed a lot of things. It's definitely changed my mindset," he says.
While he was once focused on expansion, "the older I get, it's like, God, do I want that stress? Let's just find a happy place where the people are happy and the people working in the stores are happy," he concludes.
