Confusion over Fusion Cantina, the former downtown Zaidy’s

Zaidy’s Deli, a mainstay at 121 Adams Street in Cherry Creek for decades, opened a downtown outpost several years ago in Writer Square. It did a decent breakfast and lunch business there, but the crowds flocking to LoDo and Larimer Square in the evening — and walking right past Zaidy’s — were hard to ignore.

So this past spring, the downtown Zaidy’s took on a split personality. At breakfast and lunch, it was still a regular deli. But in the late afternoon, it turned into Zaidy’s Fusion Grill, serving small plates and cocktails until the wee hours to woo the hipsters.

Now that split personality is coming back together in a single identity: the renamed Fusion Cantina, with new hours of 10 a.m. to 2 a.m. and a single menu that fuses some of Zaidy’s old favorites with a small plates menu. And where does the Cantina influence come in? That’s the source of some of our confusion. So is the fact that the Fusion Cantina is dark today, even though it’s supposed to be open seven days a week, and a liquor license hearing slated for September 16 is no longer on the Denver Department of Excise and Licenses schedule.