La Loma Will Stay Put Through September

If you haven't headed to Jefferson Park for your last supper at La Loma, you have yet another reprieve: It's staying put through September.

Since 1981, the massive Mexican restaurant has been perched at 2527 West 26th Avenue — just down the hill from the little bungalow where Savina Mendoza opened her original spot in 1973. (Today that space is home to Sassafras.) Sonny Brinkerhoff, a fan and investor in La Loma, built the new building out of three old Victorian homes; his family took over La Loma altogether three decades ago, and today Sonny runs it with his son, William.

In February, the Brinkerhoffs announced that they would close the location on West 26th in April — the property is slated to become a high-rise apartment building — while they build a new flagship home for La Loma in the Platte Valley, near the Downtown Aquarium. And in the meantime, they said, La Loma would move downtown into the former home of the Trinity Grille, which had just closed after thirty years. But then the move was postponed until May, then summer, because the transformation of the Trinity space at 1801 Broadway has taken longer than anticipated.

This time, a permitting snafu is responsible for pushing the move back yet again...which gives you more time for that final meal.
Now plans call for La Loma to stay put through the end of September, when the restaurant will close and much of its contents — including the tortilla maker — will be moved to the downtown location, where La Loma will reopen a few days later, in early October.

When the Platte Valley La Loma is finished — sometime in the next two years — plans call for the downtown restaurant to continue serving; it will be joined by a third La Loma in the Castle Rock area. The Brinkerhoffs are also working on a new concept, Sierra Grill, that will debut by the end of 2016 in Lone Tree; they broke ground on that project earlier this month.