New Steakhouse Coming to the National Western Center

A century ago, the Livestock Exchange was bustling. The three buildings at the edge of the Denver stockyards housed numerous offices, one of the busiest livestock exchanges in the country, and a bank to facilitate all the big deals. Over the years, though, the structures largely emptied out.

But once the expansion of the National Western Center was underway, the City of Denver bought the complex for $11.5 million, then sold it in 2020 to EXDO Development and other partners.

The new owners paid $8.5 million, a relative bargain, but soon began a pricey renovation project, starting with the circa 1916 building that had held the bank and the actual exchange, restoring as much of the historic wood, marble and tile as they could and dubbing it the Exchange.

They had a year-round restaurant in mind as they restored the first-floor bank space, and now they have just the tenant: The Stockton. Bryan Dayton, the restaurateur behind Boulder’s Corrida, as well as the now-defunct Acorn at the Source (which is gone, but provided plenty of experience in dealing with repurposed buildings), OAK at Fourteenth and others, will open a steakhouse designed to celebrate Colorado’s cattle heritage…linking ranch to restaurant.

“This restaurant could only belong here – in this building, on this campus, in this city,” says Bryan Dayton, founder of Half Eaten Cookie Hospitality, in an announcement of the deal. “Denver’s cattle history is part of who we are, and I feel lucky to carry that story forward in a way that supports our ranchers, our land, and our community.”

Through his Corrida Cattle Company label, Dayton partners with local ranchers to source regeneratively raised cattle that he uses to stock his restaurants; he expects more than 80 percent of the Stockton’s beef to come from Colorado-born and -bred cattle.

“This is not a concept to me, it’s my life’s work,” says Dayton. “I’ve worked on a ranch for three years and this is the only other work I’ve done outside the restaurant business. I want to show how beef, when raised regeneratively, can honor the land, the rancher and the animal itself. We have brought this to life at Corrida through the lens of the Spanish chophouse and can’t wait to extend this to Denver in a true Colorado steakhouse experience. The Stockton will be quintessential Colorado dining.”

But not until this summer. In the meantime, EXDO Development is completing the building’s transformation, looking for additional tenants and offering tours of the Exchange from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday, January 24, while the Stock Show is still in town. You can check out the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association headquarters, with refurbished offices and banners from the 1967 Stock Show, when the CCA celebrated its hundredth anniversary. On the top floor, you can see where the FBI’s bank robbery division was located, installing its own cells on the tile floor and covering the original skylight. EXDO replaced it.

The tiny historic bathrooms on the first floor had to go, too, but the new ones still have a turn-of-the-last-century feel (and the Gents has a couple of massive urinals). One side of the first floor is reserved for retail tenants, ideally high-end Western outfits that would appreciate the renovated old space but also do a lot of their work on the newfangled web, according to EXDO’s Justin Croft, who’s overseeing the project. The elegant first-floor lobby will serve as a waiting room for the Stockton. And inside the old bank, the plaster ceiling and tile floor have been restored. The vault will hold a wine cellar and a special chef’s table, while the rest of the seating will be leather banquettes.

While the renovation of the Exchange is almost complete (every window was taken out and restored), there’s still plenty of work to do on the other two buildings. The oldest, dating back to 1898, suffered a devastating fire years ago; while the exterior has been cleaned, the interior is still a gut job. The third and newest building (1919!) currently houses Wide Open @ the Stockyard, where the Sedalia-based Wide Open Saloon is running a pop-up complete with bar, live music from Riot BBQ through the Stock Show.

According to Croft, they’re already in discussion with a potential tenant who would put a year-round saloon back in that building. New bathrooms are already in place on the first floor, which used to be the adjunct Yard Bar during the Stock Show; plans call for making the new watering hole two stories. They could use the space; by 11 p.m. last weekend, Wide Open was on a “one in, one out” wait, and things got rowdy enough that a railing broke after a cowpoke climbed on top of it.

No bull.