Every Opening and Closing This Week: Bucksnort, Arvada Beer Garden Start Pouring

This week’s openings included a very welcome surprise: The Bucksnort Saloon is back, after years of limbo. Nestled in the foothills outside Pine, the Bucksnort started out as the Sphinx Park Mercantile in 1919, then morphed over time until it turned into the Bucksnort Saloon in the ’70s, then became an international draw under owner Galina Bye. But after twenty years, she wanted to retire…and the new owners got hit by the pandemic and numerous structural snags. Finally, Pete Kazura, an emergency room physician, bought it in November 2023 and spent almost two years reviving the saloon. “If you look at the restaurant business, it’s very similar to the emergency room,” he says. “You’ve got a series of rooms/tables, and a series of patients/customers. In both situations, you have someone who wants to feel heard and wants to feel like you’re present.”

At the soft opening on Thursday, Bye was present, too, celebrating the Bucksnort’s next chapter.

Also making a comeback, but in a new location: the Stockyard Saloon, now dubbed Lakewood’s Stockyard Saloon, which closed in the Livestock Exchange this spring. It’s now at 11810 West Colfax Avenue In Lakewood.

Last week also saw a big closing: the Giggling Grizzly issued last call on Sunday after thirty years as both a baseball bar and a good neighborhood joint. But the ballpark neighborhood also got a new spot, Krave It, a pizza and sandwich joint that already has a game plan for opening a couple more outposts in Denver.

The Arvada Beer Garden opened Monday, and is already a big hit (think Lowry Beer Garden on steroids), but today is the last day for TRVE Brewing, although Music City Hot Chicken, the Fort Collins concept that opened an outpost inside three years ago, has a reprieve at least through the month, and hopes to take over the entire space.

In other restaurant news:

• The Rose rooftop bar debuts today in RiNo; it’s the first half of the Rose & Thorn concept at the Penrose.
• While some diners are economizing, pricy omakase dinners are a big hit this summer.
• If you’re hiking this weekend, there’s probably a great brewery near the end of the trail.

Now keep reading for all the restaurant openings and closings this week.*

Openings

Arvada Beer Garden, 9248 West 58th Place, Arvada
Bucksnort Saloon, 15921 South Elk Creek Road, Pine
Krave It, 2210 Blake Street
Samir Restaurant & Bakery, 2700 East Colfax Avenue

Closings

Giggling Grizzly, 1320 20th Street
TRVE Brewing, 227 Broadway (at the end of July 12)

*or earlier, and not included on an earlier list.

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