Denver After Dark: Why We Can't Afford to Lose Pete's Kitchen

It's the wee hours of a Denver weekend. Maybe you've gotten out of a show, or perhaps you've just heard the old "you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here" line. You might not have laid enough of a base before drinking as much as you did, or maybe you're just hungry in that irrational but intensely serious way that hits after a night of carousing. So where do you go, if not home?

For decades of Denver residents, the answer for late-night needs is often our kitchen away from home: Pete's Kitchen, of course, diner extraordinaire, a greasy spoon with a Greek heart and community love served up in every bite. Servers you know, and who remember you. Food you know, and which will easily sate the cravings of any meal, any time. Stools with counter-service, or booths with pleather history and a place to hang your coat. Smiles. Coffee. Hot sauce — three kinds! — with Pete himself smiling back at you from the label. In short, it's the sort of place that you love as a city dweller and miss when you move away. An American classic, right on Colfax, with the neon flapjack-flipper on the sign out front.

But now Pete's — by its own admission — is in a jam.

In early August, it posted a plea on Instagram, with a photo of the Colfax construction cataclysm that's hampering business not only at Pete's, but all along Denver's apocryphal "longest, wickedest street."

"The construction on Colfax has impacted us far more than we could have imagined," says the Pete's Kitchen Instagram post. "Please come support us during this time and shop local. Colfax small businesses are hurting now, and it’s on us to lean on each other and support each other during these difficult times. Your favorite diner, bar, bookstore, or record shop could be the next to close if we fail to support them now when they need it most."

The list of Denver's favorite much-missed eateries is at this point so long that a top-ten list can't even hit all the highlights. So the threat to one more —especially a local favorite like Pete's — should be taken seriously.

It's not just the construction: Restaurants have been struggling since the pandemic, and even those that survived often found their financial foundations shaken. Costs were up, cash reserves tapped, workforces depleted. But the problems went deeper than that: Too many of us just got out of the habit of going out the way we used to. Pete's, as successful as it has been for decades, experienced all that, too, moving from its status as one of Denver's many 24-hour diners to being one of the last ones left. Even now, Pete's is open 24 hours only on the weekends. From Monday through Thursday, it serves from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Still, the fatal blow could be the complete and utter mess that the Bus Rapid Transit construction has made of Colfax, for an $280 million "improvement" project. Maybe it'll be great, these giant tubular arcs that mark bus stops where it seems like there might be shelter from the rain but won't be, but who knows? For now, only one thing's certain: If we lose all of Denver's best hometown spots before the project is complete, it wasn't worth it.

Pete's is a part of Denver history, even if its own history is a little fuzzy. The sign says it's been there since 1942, and it has been, if you mean the building and whatever diner initially inhabited it. The late Pete Contos bought it in the '80s; he'd already been operating the Satire next door since the early '60s, and when the long-time diner locale on Colfax and Race came up for sale, he jumped at it. It was just called The Kitchen back then, though some locals remember it being called Bill's Kitchen, too. Officially, it's been Pete's since 1988, but it's been Denver's kitchen for a hell of a lot longer than that. Today, his family still owns the place, and grandson Alex Barakos runs both the Satire and Pete's Kitchen.

"We survived COVID, but BRT is worse than COVID," Barakos said at a Chats on Colfax business gathering in February. "If Colfax loses businesses in the process, it's not worth it. What makes Colfax special is that it's this group of independent businesses, minority-owned businesses, women-owned businesses. Like, Pete's Kitchen is a community. Sit down, have your coffee, read your newspaper, talk to five people you don't know. That's the kind of spot it is. I don't want to lose that. That's everything my grandfather built and everything he stood for." At the time, he was hopeful. Six months later, not so much.

On a recent Monday night, one of the Pete's Kitchen servers looked around the scant crowd. "Too many people love this place to let it die," she said with a smile. "Least I hope so. I came here twelve years ago, and this was the first job I got when I got to town. I've never felt like leaving. It's home. It's family. You don't just give that up."

Pete's Kitchen is open 24 hours Friday through Sunday, 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday, at 1962 East Colfax Avenue.