Snipeburger and Tillie’s Tavern Pizza are taking over the old Colorado Plus building

There are still meat hooks bolted into the ceiling of the former walk-in refrigerator at 38th Ave. and Reed St. in Wheat Ridge, a remnant of the original tenant, Valente’s, which hung meat there from 1964 until it closed in 2008.

“It’s actually kind of creepy in there,” says Eddie Renshaw, co-owner of King of Wings, swinging the walk-in’s eight-inch-thick heavy door shut. Renshaw and his partner Evan Pierce, along with King of Wings’ kitchen manager Mitch Conley, are giving Westword a tour of the work in progress inside the space that sometime this winter will host two new restaurants under one roof — Snipeburger and Tillie’s Tavern Pizza.

The building most recently was a Colorado Plus Brew Pub that owner Eugene Khang stepped away from in the spring, but retained ownership of the space. Back in March, Khang said he wanted to hand it over to a “thriving younger business,” and didn’t have to look far. Renshaw and team already rent another former Colorado Plus location in Golden from Khang, and leaped at the chance to occupy another.

Walls are still being torn down inside the gutted space. Glassware and beer signs from the building’s previous incarnations sit on tabletops and the bar. The plan is to split the space into two connected restaurants with separate front doors: Snipeburger on the west side, and Tillie’s Tavern Pizza on the east side where the Colorado Plus beer store once operated. Both concepts — piled up, lacy-edged smashburgers and Chicago tavern-style pizza — are already featured on popup nights at other King of Wings locations. Snipeburger is featured on Tuesday nights in Golden, and Tillie’s is featured on Mondays and Thursdays in Wheat Ridge.

Both concepts already have a following thanks to the popups held to date. Snipeburger launched out of necessity: After a kitchen fire shut down King of Wings in Wheat Ridge for a year and a half starting in late 2021, Renshaw and Pierce rolled a couple of flat-top grills onto the patio in order to stay open and keep the staff paid. There, they perfected their lacy-edged, Midwest-style smash burgers, inspired by Carl’s Drive-In in Renshaw and Pierce’s hometown of St. Louis, and customers soon lined up around the building to grab one. Rather than let it die once King of Wings reopened, they kept Snipeburger as a popup. The burgers are built from a double patty up to a six-patty stack called the Hex. The meat, a blend of brisket and chuck, is ground in-house, and the buns are house-made as well.

Tillie’s Tavern Pizza started more deliberately at the Wheat Ridge King of Wings location during football season last year. It’s led day-to-day by Conley, a Chicago transplant who knows the tavern-style tradition the concept is chasing. These 14-inch round pies feature a cracker-thin square-cut crust that holds toppings right to the edge — there’s no raised lip crust to grip, but the slices don’t droop or fold.

The sauce at Tillie’s is thicker and more seasoned than typical pizza sauce, built from Bianco DiNapoli tomatoes, the premium line from Phoenix-based pizzaiolo Chris Bianco, blended with tomato paste and aromatics into a sauce akin to a marinara. The toppings, including sausage from Belfiore just down the street, are meant to be the star.

This past Monday night, Tillie’s weekly special was the Western Slope, featuring garlic, ricotta, and fresh mozzarella along with Palisade peaches and aged gouda. A pepperoni/pineapple/jalapeño construction called Zach’s Way was a perfect pizza, with every square featuring each of the toppings. Two of the pizzas on the regular menu feature Italian beef and hot giardiniera — the Mr. Beef and The Bear, the latter of which adds caramelized onions and pecorino romano.

The new space will have a full liquor license — unlike King of Wings in Wheat Ridge, which only serves beer and wine — as well as a twenty-tap craft beer wall, a six-tap kegerator, and a cocktail program borrowed from King of Wings’ Golden location, highlighting margaritas and tequila. The new building is also massive, with enough room to include private banquet rooms that can be rented for events.

Renshaw and Pierce are aiming to open by winter, construction permitting. But in the meantime you can preview the new restaurant’s upcoming attractions by visiting a King of Wings location during the popup hours: Tillie’s in Wheat Ridge on Mondays and Thursdays, and Snipeburger at the Golden location on Tuesdays.