"These bakeries are great," he said, pointing out TOUS les JOURS and then looking around at the Asian bakeries in the same plaza. "Pad Thai, there's always amazing pad Thai and Ethiopian food."
Crow was visiting the small shopping center at South Havana and Yale on January 25, there to hear from business owners hungry to know what their representative could do for Havana Street.
"This area and these businesses have unique needs — not just the public safety issues, but the workforce development, as well," Crow said. "Small businesses constitute the bulk of our businesses, of our economic activity and our employers in the state and in this community, so I just wanted to visit them about their concerns."
The entrepreneurs he heard from were all part of the Havana Business Improvement District, which stretches over five miles along Havana Street, from Dartmouth Avenue to Sixth Avenue, right next to Aurora's boundary with Denver.
Active metro diners know about Havana Street's options for sushi, mariscos, Korean BBQ, pho, hot pot and Ethiopian cuisine. Shoppers also frequent national retail chains along the street, such as Target and Costco. But the biggest money maker on Havana is the highest concentration of car dealerships in Aurora — more than two dozen.
The Havana Business Improvement District, which was formed in 2007 as a special taxing district, generates more than $20 million in sales tax revenue for the City of Aurora. There are more than 2,000 businesses in the Havana BID, and only 2 percent of its commercial properties are vacant right now — a "phenomenal" mark, according to Garrett Walls, president of the BID board.
"We're the leader in Aurora for a single line-item district adding to the city's budget, which is mostly funded by sales tax," Walls says. "And it's not your average business corridor. It's mom-and-pop. We're local owners."
The restaurants along the corridor showcase a range of cultures that are part of the city's identity as the "World in a City," Walls notes, adding that many of those restaurants have been there for more than a decade.
"Havana has kind of become the cultural heart of Aurora," Walls says. "If you think of Havana Street, it's diversity on display. It's the best of what makes America America. You can walk twenty feet and discover a whole new culture. That's something that's absolutely unique about Havana Street."
Often, he says, these businesses wind up on Havana Street because the commercial property owners are "willing to cut a deal, willing to take a chance" on immigrants in ways that no one else will.
For example, in 2020 TOUS les JOURS had trouble finding a place to open until it went to Havana Street, where its current landlord recognized that it was a franchise of a South Korean bakery and knew it would fit in with other nearby Korean businesses, says Walls, who reviewed the bakery's lease application.
"It's a different conversation than what business owners have to have throughout the state," Walls says of of the immigrant business owners. "It's one of the unique things we have on Havana Street."
Crow's district has a population of more than 700,000 people, spread out along the southeast metro area from Aurora to Columbine. Aurora sits entirely in the district and accounts for more than half of Crow's constituents. He moved to Aurora when he ran for Congress in 2018, defeating incumbent Mike Coffman, who today is Aurora's mayor. The three-term congressman sits on the House Small Business Committee and now lives near the shopping center he visited last week.
El Tequileño, which is in the plaza, is one of his family's favorite Mexican restaurants. He held his election-night watch party there in 2022.
After touring a few other stores, the congressman walked into TOUS les JOURS, where he listened to business owners discuss their biggest concerns: theft, homelessness and a workforce shortage.
Colin Larson, far left, told Jason Crow that restaurants would like to hire migrants to fill gaps, but can't because of federal law.
Bennito L. Kelty
Crow responded that "statewide, what we're seeing is a reduction in violent crimes and a reduction of auto thefts, but we're not seeing a reduction in retail theft."
Adriana Lara, an assets protection outreach coordinator for Target, told the congressman that "there were a lot of vehicle thefts, which we also saw last year." She said she wants "more opportunities for small businesses and large businesses to file police reports online," because "officers aren't always able to come and take reports."
"Dine-and-dash" theft has hit restaurants hard recently, Walls adds later. "It's out of control right now." A Denny's on the Havana Street corridor, an IHOP on Peoria Street and El Tequileño have all "been hit hard" by customers ordering and then leaving without paying. "It's pretty shocking," Walls notes.
Many of the business owners who talked to Crow brought up concerns about homelessness, an issue "we really continue to struggle with" along Havana Street," Walls says. Several shopping centers in the district, including the one Crow visited, front greenbelts where homeless encampments have been set up, and that affected the nearby businesses.
"There's just a concern with them walking through the centers, trash — there's just a lot of issues and public safety issues concerned with that," Walls says. "There's a lot of compassion from the business owners. It's not an adversarial relationship."
Colin Larson, a former state representative and now the government affairs director for the Colorado Restaurant Association, brought up the potential for hiring migrants. Restaurants are struggling to find workers, especially for the more hands-on, back-of-house jobs like dishwasher and prep and line cook, he said, suggesting that the solution could be allowing migrants to work, which federal law currently prohibits because they are non-citizens.
"The industry is starving for employees; we'd love to hire the people who are here, but we can't do it," Larson told Crow. "Any work you can continue to do with finding them work authorization would be huge."
"We have a surge of migrants here in Colorado," Crow responded, "and these folks want to work, and these businesses need workers. One of the big things we can do is provide work authorization for immigrants and our refugees." Creating work authorization would be a "win-win" for businesses and migrants, he added.
Despite the challenges, "the future is very strong" for Havana Street businesses, Walls says, predicting that within three years, the corridor will have no vacancies because more businesses will move in.
"Even more incredible food will come," he concludes. "I'm really excited for the future."
