Fire Closes Another Popular Italian Restaurant in Denver

Your options for Italian food became one restaurant shorter this week, after a fire shut down Parisi, one of our Ten Best Italian Restaurants in Denver, for an indefinite period of time.

Parisi, located at 4401 Tennyson Street in the Berkeley neighborhood, and its below-ground sibling, Parisi Sotto, are both shuttered “until further notice” following an electrical fire that tore through a crawlspace in the building on May 12, damaging the roof and filling the space with smoke. Power, water, and gas had to be shut off while firefighters battled the blaze.

Photos of the fire quickly appeared on Reddit and other social media sites, showing smoke billowing from the diniing room, where firefighters could be seen working around a rather large hole in the ceiling. The restaurant’s owners followed up with a video touring the damage, including that hole, along with fallen plaster and other debris strewn about both the kitchen and dining room from the activity.

“I’m gutted right now,” read a statement on the restaurant’s Instagram account announcing the news. “This place (building and biz) is like my firstborn. Lots of cleanup, then we should have better details. We will be back, but just not sure yet how long it will take.”

So far, the owners have not provided a timeline on how long the restaurant will be closed or details on the full extent of the damage, promising an update “in another few days.”

“It’s bad,” reads another Instagram statement accompanying the damage video. “But could have been so much worse.”

A visit to the restaurant early May 14 found a flurry of activity already underway. Work trucks with piles of two-by-fours and workers in hard hats and yellow vests were busy entering and exiting the building. The second-floor windows were open to air out the space, with the odor of smoke and burned wood still noticeable in the air. And there was a large mobile refrigeration unit set up to save whatever remaining food items could be salvaged.

The restaurant has reached out to customers with private bookings and catering in the immediate future to arrange for alternative accommodations.

Parisi originated in 1998 as an Italian market and deli, later moving to Tennyson Street as a full-service restaurant in 2004. It’s remained there as a staple of the neighborhood, offering classic Italian fare long before the explosion of red-sauce joints spread across the city in recent years. It briefly attempted a fine-dining concept in the downstairs, called Firenze a Tavola, but closed that down during the pandemic, later reopening it as the speakeasy-like Parisi Sotto.

Earlier this year, Odyssey Italian Restaurant in Uptown also closed due to a fire; it’s now looking to reopen in the coming week. The owners there, however, are still reeling from a second restaurant disaster after a truck crashed into Odyssey’s sister concept Ollie and Park’s, shuttering that eatery as well.

Parisi is located at 4401 Tennyson Street, and its normal operating hours are 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday through Wednesday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, and noon to 8 p.m. on Sunday. For more information, visit parisidenver.com, or follow Instagram at @parisidenver to get the latest updates.