Popular Wheat Ridge Brewpub Closing After Thirteen Years

Eugene Khang has owned the building at Reed Street and West 38th Avenue in Wheat Ridge for more than a decade. He knows every wall, every structural headache hiding behind the drywall, every dollar he’s sunk into the place since he and some partners bought what was then the old Valente’s building and turned it into Colorado Plus Brew Pub and Taphouse in 2013.

Even through tumultuous early partnerships, the COVID shutdown and an eight-month closure for a gut renovation that cost Khang roughly $400,000 out of pocket, the neighborhood spot became a beloved staple for many.

But on May 30, Colorado Plus will close for good.

Khang recently posted the news to Facebook using the kind of careful, reflective language people employ when they’re trying to say a hard thing the right way. He wrote about blind ambition, the writing on the wall and changing trends, particularly the ongoing contraction of the Denver craft beer scene. “We need to step back and away from the industry we have loved for so long,” the message concludes.

Reached by phone, Khang was a little more blunt about the situation. “I went from having 25 employees to about 12 right now,” he says. “And if anyone calls out, it’s just…it becomes a grind, and the passion is lost. And I don’t think that’s healthy for me, for the business, or for the neighborhood.”

Khang, who’s owned businesses in Wheat Ridge for twenty years, including a liquor store prior to Colorado Plus, says the closure isn’t quite the gut punch it might look like from the outside, as another local operator has plans to move in. Details about the new concept are still under wraps, but Khang is excited for the space to get a fresh start.

“A lot of these guests, they met here on a first date, and then we’ve done their wedding rehearsal dinner upstairs,” Khang notes. “Then a couple years later, they’re in here with their kids. If I can give the opportunity — because this is a great neighborhood, it’s a great street, it’s a great building — and I can have someone come in here, and just kind of pass the torch, hand the keys over to a thriving younger business, I think that’s the kind of responsibility you have as a property owner.”

As for what’s next, Khang wants to take a break, spend time with family and return to his roots. He wants to learn to ferment doenjang, the pungent Korean bean paste that made him too embarrassed to bring friends home as a kid growing up in Lakewood. From doenjang, you can make soy sauce from scratch, and Khang has plans for that, too: maybe a Korean-Hawaiian barbecue concept somewhere down the line.

But first, he’ll spend the next two months bidding farewell to Colorado Plus and the many memories that have been built there over the years.

Colorado Plus Brew Pub and Taphouse is located at 6995 West 38th Avenue in Wheat Ridge and will be open from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Wednesday through Monday until May 30. For more information, visit coloradoplus.net.