Restaurateur Closes Three Eateries: Grabowski's and Campfire in Lakewood and Evergreen

Jared Leonard has opened — and closed — a lot of food concepts since he brought his first venture to Denver seven years ago: the Montreal barbecue-inspired food stall Au Feu, which was inside Zeppelin Station when it debuted in 2018.

Now, he's closing three more restaurants, leaving just one of his local businesses in operation: AJ's Pit Bar-B-Q at 2180 South Delaware Street, which was one of the Bib Gourmand eateries in Colorado's first Michelin Guide in 2023, though it was omitted from the 2024 edition.

On February 6, Grabowski's, his Chicago tavern-style pizzeria that relocated from the Source to Lakewood in 2023, and his Campfire locations in Lakewood (840 Tabor Street) and Evergreen (27883 Meadow Drive) announced their closures via nearly identical emails to subscribers.

Campfire Lakewood sold out the day of the announcement and will not be open this weekend. Campfire Evergreen will remain open on Friday and Saturday, or until it sells out. The same goes for Grabowski's.

Leonard's Campfire locations are not related to Colorado Campfire at 400 East 19th Avenue, the restaurant with which he previously had a trademark dispute.
"It's what's going on with everybody right now — high operating costs for the last two years," Leonard says of the decision to shutter the businesses. "It seems to be impossible with the full-service model. It's just a hard model right now with the economy."

He also cites an issue with Toast, his point of sale provider at the three restaurants,k as a factor. After changing banks, he submitted the new information to Toast — but notes that because of a technical issue, credit card payments, which Leonard says account for 95 percent of sales, were not being deposited into the account. "It's super-frustrating timing because we were right on the edge of being able to push through this," he says.

Leonard came to Denver after building successful hot chicken and barbecue concepts in Chicago. Along with Au Feu, he opened several concepts at Zeppelin Station, including Budlong Hot Chicken, Norm's Deli and Hamburger Stan, before moving out of the food hall and into a series of brick-and-mortars, including the building at 81 South Pennsylvania Street where he opened as a Budlong location in 2020 before swapping it for Au Feu in 2021. In 2023, he closed that and replacing it with French cocktail lounge Clairette, which lasted about six months before he tried one last concept in the space, a steakhouse spinoff of AJ's, which closed last August.

Leonard says he expects new operators to take over both Campfire locations and the pizzeria, which operated as Frontroom Pizza for over three decades, then Alex Seidel's Roca's for a year before Grabowski's moved in.

Now, Leonard is focused on the AJ's brand. "Keep it simple, stupid, right?" he says.

Along with the Denver AJ's location, which operates with a counter-service model, he also has an AJ's Pit Bar-B-Q and an AJ's Prime steakhouse in Punta Mita, Mexico. "The labor market in Mexico is easier," he says. "There have been some challenges operationally, but we're trying it out and we'll be back and forth" between Denver and Punta Mita.