The Monkey Barrel Closing Platte Street Location, Opening New Location This Summer

More than two years after the Monkey Barrel opened at 1611 Platte Street, the bar and live-music venue is closing at the end of April, as the building is slated to be demolished in June to make way for an office building. There will be one final bash at the spot on Friday, April 29, with live music from White Fudge and Phallicious D, which will give folks a chance to say farewell to this location before the Monkey Barrel relocates to 4401 Tejon Street this summer.

Monkey Barrel proprietor Jimmy Nigg, who also owns Rockabillies in Arvada, says the new space is 1,500 square feet but he’s more than doubling that with an addition, which he’s hoping to have completed by September. He’s shooting to have the new Monkey Barrel open by July, when he’ll start serving food, as he’s teamed up with Tony Lonardo, son of Rosa and Nick Lonardo, who ran Carbone’s Italian Sausage Deli for nearly four decades until it closed four years ago. Nigg says Lonardo will be making some of the sandwiches that Carbone’s offered as takeout.

The new location will also have a patio, which Nigg says will be somewhere between 3,000 and 5,000 square feet and take up about a third of the spaces in the parking lot, and there will still be free parking around Chaffee Park, which is across the street.

Nigg says he’s hoping to have a better setup for music at the new location; he’s thinking of possibly hosting live music on the patio during the day, but he wants to be courteous to the surrounding neighbors.

“It’s going to be a new experience for me putting music outside,” Nigg says. “I think people are going to be receptive to it. People love patios. People are hanging out outside. I don’t think there are too many places that offer it outside, so I think it will be cool.”

Here's a look at renderings of the new Monkey Barrel: