Denver Milk Market Adds Three New Food Vendors

Denver Milk Market is kicking off its revitalization efforts with its first three long-term tenants: Konjo Ethiopian Food, Lucky Bird and YumCha.

The downtown food hall was started in 2018 by Denver restaurateur Frank Bonanno, whose group operated all sixteen of its food and beverage concepts. However, by 2023 the business was struggling and Bonanno ultimately sold his master license to Sage Hospitality, which came in and took over operations of the existing concepts.

“Frank really wanted to create Eataly,” a chain of Italian food and retail halls that have become popular in Italy as well as the U.S., says Scott Vollmer, general manager of Dairy Block for McWhinney, whose previous experiences includes opening the Bluebird Market in Silverthorne. “He certainly built out a beautiful space, but there were lessons learned…some of the existing spaces were a little too big for a traditional food hall. We actually split the previous Lou's Hot and Naked space, which was about 850 square feet, into two 400 square feet.”

Lou's served a menu of fried chicken and had a painting of a rooster on the wall looking over diners.
Now the chicken mural belongs to Lucky Bird, which is fitting for the food truck and restaurant concept known for its hand-breaded tenders, crispy chicken sandwiches, wraps, salads and sweet potato waffle fries. “We specialize in chicken tenders and [Milk Market] is a good option for us because there’s a whole bunch of different food options, so we can stick to what we do best,” says owner Leigh Davison.

She’s no food hall novice; Lucky Bird already has a stall at the Edgewater Public Market — which is how she knows Fetien Gebre-Michael, founder of Konjo Ethiopian Food. When Davison heard of the Milk Market opportunity, she asked Gebre-Michael if she’d be interested. Now they’re operating side-by-side in the previous Lou’s space.

As the real estate developer and landlord, McWhinney sets the vision and trajectory of Milk Market, which is why it brought on Vollmer a year ago — and Vollmer has high expectations for the food hall. “Moving towards [a concept] like Oxbow Public Market in Napa would be our dream," he says. "Now, we don’t have 45 farms within 90 miles, so that probably won’t be as achievable, but we really hope to…bring in concepts that are selling groceries and ingredients,” which he targets making up 15 to 20 percent of Milk Market’s revenue.

“The food system in America is disjointed and disconnected,” he continues. “We really want to try to hone in on locally-sourced ingredients and purveyors that provide unique experiences. I want a family from Laos to come to the Denver Milk Market and find really great cuisine that you can’t find at a King Soopers or Trader Joe’s.”
And to accomplish that, he needed great local restaurant tenants such as Konjo, a fast-casual Ethiopian eatery offering a menu of scratch-made protein and vegetables served on injera — with plenty of gluten-free, vegan, nut-free and dairy-free options to suit diverse dietary needs. For Gebre-Michael, a food hall was the way to go in Denver’s challenging business environment. “And thank God we made that decision, because we wouldn’t have made it through COVID,” she says. She had actually submitted LOIs for two food hall locations in Aurora when Davison alerted her to this opportunity. “They had really good terms and they’re reasonable for the newbies coming in,” she says.

The third restaurant tenant is YumCha, which still needs a few weeks before it officially opens to the public. While there is a YumCha Beer in Central Park, this new Milk Market location will be closer in concept to the original restaurant, which had co-located its kitchen with LeRoux; when that downtown restaurant closed during COVID, it took YumCha down with it. But now chef Lon Symensma, known for blending Asian flavors with his Michelin-trained French technique, is bringing YumCha back.

“We’ll focus on heavy dim sum items and also have a small bowl section, some chilled noodle dishes, some ramen as well. I’ll probably also do a couple fun Asian-y sort of burgers, some Asian flavors with maybe a smash burger because we have this amazing 24-inch flat top over there,” he says pointing, at his still-under-construction stall.

What’s been great for all three vendors is that McWhinney took on the bulk of the renovation and refit work, part of its ultra-hands-on philosophy. “We not only do customer experience in the front of the house but provide everything from POS system support to ensuring the hoods get cleaned on a quarterly basis,” says Vollmer, who adds that he likes to have heavy input into the menu and merchandise selection of the vendors. However, his goal is to “really allow the independent operators to be creative throughout the whole experience, and that means different materials on each of the stalls, different lighting," he notes. "In order to be successful in food, you really have to create a variety that draws and attracts people.”

Although he couldn’t divulge details, Vollmer hints that this is just the beginning of the changes at the food hall. The plan is to slowly bring in third-party restaurant concepts to re-tenant the space and make Milk Market a vibrant representation of Denver’s food scene.

Milk Market is located at 1800 Wazee Street and is open 11 a.m.-9 p.m. daily, denvermilkmarket.com.