Beau Jo's Will Close in University Hills on July 30

Beau Jo's may very well be the inventor and only practitioner of "Colorado-style pizza," but soon there will be one less place to partake in the pies that sport a crust nearly cracker-thin in the middle but fat like a bicycle tire around the edge. The pizza chain will close its 2710 South Colorado Boulevard location on July 30.

The only indication that anything is amiss at Beau Jo's is a note on the company's website stating "Lease ending July 30, 2017" under the University Hills listing.

That leaves six other pizza parlors operated by Beau Jo's in Colorado, including the Idaho Springs original, which opened in 1973. But that number will soon go back up: A new Beau Jo's is slated to open at 2033 Ken Pratt Boulevard in Longmont, in what was once a Carino's Italian Grill.

The original Beau Jo's is more than forty years old, but the University Hills location is no spring chicken itself; it opened in 1987, back when there was actually a University Hills Mall at the corner of South Colorado Boulevard and East Yale Avenue. The mall was demolished in 1996 — right around the time that many Denverites were demolishing fat pizza crusts dripping with honey.

Pizza trends change, and newcomers to the city are more likely to gravitate to delicate wood-fired pies done in the Neapolitan style than toward monstrous constructions sold by the pound — Beau Jo's XL pizza weighs in at an intimidating five pounds. But that five-pounder remains a rite of passage for young Coloradans, much as a trip to Casa Bonita or a first steak at the Fort.