Reader: Sorry about Ondo's, but restaurants don't thrive in subterranean spaces

Restaurants are rushing to open before the end of the year -- and that's also the time when we'll suddenly see closures. The sad news started this week, when Ondo's Spanish Tapas Bar announced that after four years in a subterranean space in Cherry Creek, it will go underground for...

By Patricia Calhoun

December 19, 2013

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Restaurants are rushing to open before the end of the year -- and that's also the time when we'll suddenly see closures. The sad news started this week, when Ondo's Spanish Tapas Bar announced that after four years in a subterranean space in Cherry Creek, it will go underground for good on December 31. Although the restaurant has plenty of fans (it made our recent list of the Ten Best Restaurants in Cherry Creek), everyone agrees it also had a lousy location.

Says DanWinter:

I don't believe there is a single restaurant in the Cherry Creek area that has thrived in one of those subterranean spaces. Think Argyll (and before that Squealing Pig) and Tambien. Jury is still out on Margs...good summer crowd but seems pretty slow there these days. I'd like to know how La Merise and Sweet Ginger are doing. Also, I recall a series of restaurants and night clubs downstairs on Fillmore years ago before that area dried up and has now been reinvented.

It's a tough location for sure.

Can you think of any subterranean restaurants that have survived in Cherry Creek? Anywhere else in town? Another reader suggests that this is also a tough town for tapas restaurants. When Ondo's closes, where will you go for tapas?

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Patricia Calhoun is editor-in-chief of Westword, the alt-weekly she co-founded in September 1977. She’s been inducted into the Colorado Press Association Hall of Fame, the Association of Alternative Newsmedia Hall of Fame and the Colorado Restaurant Association Hall of Fame. She’s also received dozens of local, state and national awards for writing, including first place for feature writing and first place for column writing with the Society of Professional Journalists. Patricia is a weekly commentator on Colorado Inside Out, PBS 12's public affairs roundtable, which has won two Emmys.

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