Broadway Calzone Shop Drops Prices Under $10 Amid Inflation

While the debate around government-mandated labor costs gets most of the spotlight in the discussion of financial challenges facing Denver restaurants, high rent is perhaps a bigger problem. Restaurants can always cut back on staff or hours to cut costs, but that rent check is due every month.

For Ben Todd, owner of Full Afterburner Calzones on Broadway, the rent is just too damn high. 

“Everything costs too much, and everyone’s tightening their belts,” he says. “You know who’s not tightening their belts? Commercial landlords. The rent never goes down.”

For most, this is a fait accompli, a necessary evil. A cost of doing business that translates to higher prices for the goods, services and food that these businesses sell, ultimately landing on the consumer, or contributing to a restaurant going out of business completely.

But Todd has taken an unusual and counterintuitive approach to protesting this reality by lowering prices instead. About two weeks ago, the restaurant quietly reduced the price of its signature calzones from $13.50 to $9.75. 

Why? Full Afterburner’s costs haven’t gone down. In fact, according to Todd, his food costs on average have increased 44 percent over the last five years. What’s more, his rent automatically increases every year, a standard component of most rental agreements. Meanwhile, sales have slowed, falling to levels not seen since the pandemic. 

For Todd, lowering prices is part business decision (hoping lower prices beget increased sales), and part reaction to a system that he feels has spiraled out of control. 

“This whole country just kind of lost the idea of a modest profit,” he says. “There are restaurants that are just keeping prices high. There are grocery stores that are just keeping prices high. There are landlords that are just keeping prices high. It’s not really just a food thing. We’re saying this is systemic. This is everywhere. And some people know where their profitability really lies but simply refuse to lower the price.”

To be fair, not all restaurants or landlords are in a position to slash prices. Full Afterburner Calzones doesn’t have much in the way of associated costs like linens or silverware, and doesn’t employ servers. And many landlords have mortgages to cover, particularly those who acquired property more recently with higher interest rates. 

So the focus of Todd’s point is on what are known as “comps” — a real estate concept that says if a nearby location is getting away with charging a certain price, then the market must be able to support that same price for others. But those with lower costs, Todd believes, can afford to charge less and still make as healthy a profit margin as those who have to charge more to cover their higher costs. 

Looking around from his vantage point at the restaurant’s Broadway location, Todd sees a string of “for lease” signs as neighbors, many of which have housed multiple failed businesses over the years. Take the space at 24 Broadway #104. Today it sits empty, but it previously housed the likes of Todd and his wife, Hillary Schefter’s, short-lived Rhapsody Karaoke (which closed in August), Casey Jones (which closed in July 2023), Giordano’s pizza (closed March 2022) and Leña (closed August 2020). 

Meanwhile, the space directly next door, Historian’s Ale House, has been going strong since 2013. But rents all along Broadway are expected to increase as properties change hands, and new landlords aim to maximize their profits. The question is, who will pay those prices as vacancies continue?

Just as supply and demand is starting to drive down the price of residential homes in the Denver area, Todd feels rental space, and the costs of good sold within them, eventually must lower as well for the economic system to level out. 

“If you’re a commercial landlord with no mortgage and you have a ‘for lease’ sign up, perhaps you should consider lowering the rent,” Todd says. “My wife and I just said that if we really believe we want to live in a world where prices go up and down, then we should be the first ones to do it.”

Full Afterburner Calzones is located at 32 Broadway and is open from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 11 a.m. to 3 a.m. Friday and Saturday. For more information, visit fullafterburnercalzones.com.