A Popular Denver Breakfast Diner Is Closing After Almost Fifty Years

There are plenty of places to have breakfast in Denver, from national chains to the latest hipster havens with trendy coffee drinks. But locally-owned restaurants that have served breakfast to generations of diners are getting harder to find. The Denver Diner shuttered in 2021, and the 20th Street Cafe closed in 2020 after three generations of a Japanese American family ran the downtown mainstay. (The name and the iconic, worn-down neon sign live on, though, as the 20th Street Cafe Mexican.)

This past weekend, another diner institution announced that it's closing: The Breakfast Inn, touted by Westword as one of the best diners in Denver, posted a dreaded closing notice on Instagram, sending a wave of sadness over anyone who's ever eaten the diner's famous fluffy sweet cream pancakes or admired the model train chugging along one side of the restaurant as they ate.

The Instagram post, by owner David Frieder, was both nostalgic and direct.

"The BI has been a local favorite for 50 years," Frieder wrote. "As the owner for the last 21 of those years, I’ve been in foreign countries and met people who have eaten at my restaurant. I have watched both customers and employees alike grow up, go to school, get married (many times to people they met at the BI) and start families. I have had regular guests for 10 to 15 to 20 years who were my age now that have passed on, and it felt like I lost a relative time and time again.

"The BI has been there for the community and the community has ALWAYS been there for the BI.

"It comes with great sadness to share with the community that the BI will be closing permanently on June 8th at 2pm. After a year of fighting the good fight, our lease was not renewed and the property has been sold. We would love to see every single person who has been through so much with us before we close, so please come by to say goodbye and get some of Liborios green chile one last time! I thank everyone for the privilege of serving you for most of my professional career, I will certainly miss what the BI means to the community!"

Frieder bought the restaurant from his ex-father-in-law, who opened the Breakfast Inn in 1976. He admits he'll miss the loyal clientele that's been dining there. "I'm pretty heartbroken over it," he says. "I've been visiting with people I've known for twenty years all day, and I'll do that for the next few weeks, I bet."

But there's hope for those longtime customers — if they want to drive a bit for their dishes. Frieder has another restaurant in the metro area, EAT! Food & Drink, that serves breakfast, brunch and lunch in Broomfield. And, he notes, it serves the same special sweet cream pancakes that kept diners coming to Breakfast Inn.

Phil Murray, who has eaten both breakfast and lunch at Breakfast Inn over the years, says that he'll miss the food and the friendly waitstaff. "And their pancakes were good," he says of the sweet cream pancakes. "And what I used to get for lunch was the classic cheeseburger, and the green chile has good flavor."

Now, he has just a couple of weeks to go back and order his favorites one last time.

The Breakfast Inn is at 6135 East Evans Avenue, and is open Tuesday through Sunday from 7 a.m. to 1:45 p.m.; go to breakfastindenver.net. Frieder's second restaurant, EAT! Food & Drink, is at 520 Zang Street, Suite N in Broomfield, and is open Monday through Thursday from 8 a.m. to 2:30-ish p.m. and Friday through Sunday from 7 a.m.to 2:30-ish p.m.; learn more at eatateat.com.