Stoney's Bar and Grill Taking Over Sloan's Lake Tap & Burger

For the sports-bar scene, this was a win-win.

Since he and his partners opened the first Tap & Burger in Highland in 2010, Juan Padró has built a restaurant empire with Culinary Creative, which today has a dozen concepts that stretch from Aspen to New Orleans. By this year, the company had four Tap & Burgers in metro Denver alone...but Padró was ready to let one go, the Tap & Burger at 1565 Raleigh Street in Sloan's Lake.

That was "our fastest-growing store before COVID. Things were really booming there," Padró recalls. But these days, he notes, "if things aren't perfect, there's no room for error." And not only is that neighborhood off West Colfax Avenue definitely imperfect, but current labor costs — Padró is involved in the current efforts at the Colorado Legislature to change the tipped minimum wage rules  — just left no room.

But the building won't stay closed for long: It will reopen next month as the fourth Stoney's Bar and Grill.

"You don't like closing a place," Padró says, "but we had limited time left on our lease, and it was a good opportunity for them to pick something up."

Particularly since the space was tailor-made for the owners of Stoney's, who are longtime friends. "We weren't looking in Denver anymore for the same reasons everyone else has," says Stoney Jesseph referring to the high cost of doing business in this city. After all, their place up in Winter Park, now on its third season, is "kicking ass," he notes.

But his partner, Will Trautman, lives in Edgewater, which made the location appealing. "And we could slide right in since it was already designed as a sports bar," Jesseph notes.

And slide they did, taking over the lease earlier this month.

In the meantime, Padro made sure his employees from that location were taken care of — he says he gave them each $500 so they could think for a few days about whether they wanted to move to another Culinary Creative restaurant or move on.

Right now, Jessephs and Trautman are making a few tweaks to the place. The plan is to model most of the menu and other programs after Stoney's Uptown Joint on East 17th Avenue rather than the flagship on Lincoln since the 17th spot is about the same size as the Sloan's Lake space. And the goal is to be open the week of March 10, in time for March Madness.

Win-win.