Antony Bruno
Audio By Carbonatix
Among the many strip-mall, cookie-cutter buildings that dot the restaurant landscape in Littleton, Lucile’s Creole Cafe has long stood apart.
The restaurant sits in a country-estate, ranch-style home mere feet from the South Platte River. Look at it just right, and the place feels like a little slice of bucolic country ambiance that’s the perfect setting for the Southern fare loyal patrons have come to enjoy since this branch of Lucile’s opened in 2011.
But not for much longer. Thanks to an on-again, off-again rental situation with the building’s owner — DISH Network, which occupies the neighboring office complex — the restaurant’s owners told staff on Monday, May 11, that they will need to close the restaurant at the end of May.
According to Brian Heilman, a partner with the Lucile’s Creole Cafe group, the restaurant was on a five-year lease with an option to extend, but missed the deadline to indicate its desire to stay by a few months. Efforts to extend the lease further fell on deaf ears.
“They refused to work with us,” he says of DISH. “We have employees with families and jobs, so we said we’d like to do the other five years, and they said no.”
Technically, the lease was up at the end of March. When the Lucile’s team asked for an extension to provide the time needed to negotiate a longer-term solution, DISH agreed but doubled the rent. As negotiations continued, Heilman says the restaurant asked to stay through June, but DISH responded by then tripling the rent. Unable to afford that, the restaurant group started looking for a new space to call home. But time has run out on the current location.
“We tried to find several spots,” Heilman says. “We were close on a couple, and both of them ended up falling through. We’re still looking for another spot to relocate to, but we have to be out of where we are now by the end May.”
This isn’t the first rental snafu for the Littleton restaurant. In late 2020, it briefly closed after its lease ran out; it reopened five months later once a new deal was struck. This time, however, no such lifeline is expected.
Antony Bruno
DISH has slowly taken over much of the parking lot already, turning the trip to get to the restaurant into a snaking, winding obstacle course of concrete barriers, lowered gates, and “No Trespassing” signs.
In 2020, DISH took over the Blind Faith brewery that occupied the space directly next to Lucile’s, and turned it into office space for its Office of Innovation division. We’ve reached out to DISH to learn more about its plans for the Lucile’s space.
Antony Bruno
The Littleton Lucile’s is one of seven locations of the homegrown chain, which was founded in Boulder in 1980 by Lucile Richards. The restaurant quickly became popular with those who craved its signature Cajun-style breakfasts and Benedicts, chicory coffee, and powdered sugar beignets. Soon the concept expanded to two spaces in Denver, along with spots in Longmont, Erie, and Fort Collins. But now it’s leaving Littleton.
Staff and patrons alike are already reacting to news of the closure.
“We are all devastated, to say the least,” says one employee who asks not to be named. “I think I speak for many of my coworkers when I say we are incredibly heartbroken at the news. One of our regulars even started tearing up today when I told her the news right after I found out.”
Not only are Littleton area diners soon to lose a longtime favorite breakfast spot, but many of the staffers may be out of a job. Heilman says the company will try to absorb as many employees as possible at other locations, and will provide letters of recommendation for those who move on.
In the meantime, the search for a new Lucile’s location continues.
“We’ve been there for [fifteen] years,” Heilman says. “We love the community. They’ve been awesome to us. We don’t want to go. We’d love to stay. And we’re still going to try to find another spot in the city of Littleton. If anybody knows a good spot, let us know.”
Lucile’s Creole Cafe is located at 2852 West Bowles Avenue in Littleton and is open from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday, and from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday (for now). For more information, visit luciles.com.
