Restaurant Roll Call: All the Openings and Closings in Denver in September

Denver continues to grind out new restaurants at a surprisingly consistent pace, like a sausage maker turning the crank round and round. So far in 2016, each month has seen about twenty openings in the metro area — and September was no different. Two debuts this month, at opposite ends of the scale of size and impact, attracted attention. At the small end, tiny El Coqui D'Aqui, a Puerto Rican joint with barely twenty seats, opened on South Colorado Boulevard as the city's only boricua eatery — filling a gap felt by many Puerto Rican transplants. And in RiNo, the new Denver Central Market covers so much ground — in both footprint and breadth of culinary offerings — that El Coqui could easily be tucked into one of its corners. Denver Central Market opened on September 25, bringing eleven separate food and beverage vendors — devoted equally to in-house and takeout products — to Larimer Street.

Other flashy openings included Sloan's Lake Tap & Burger, in a brand-new development between the namesake lake and West Colfax Avenue; the spacious second outpost of Angelo's Taverna, next to the Breckenridge Brewery's Farm House in Littleton; and Avelina downtown, the first Denver eatery for a North Carolina restaurant group — but with Denver chef John Broening and pastry chef Yasmin Lozada-Hissom in the kitchen.

Several closings dampened the September celebrations, though, notably the shuttering of the Campus Lounge, which had held down its corner of University Boulevard and Exposition Avenue for the past forty years, and the Celtic Tavern, a favorite for all things Irish (if all of those things are stout and whiskey) since 2000.

Here's our complete list of bar and restaurant openings and closings for September 2016:

RESTAURANTS/BARS OPENING IN SEPTEMBER:*
715 Club, 715 East 26th Avenue
Angelo's Taverna and Carboy Winery, 6885 South Santa Fe Drive
Avelina, 1550 17th Street
Commonwealth Coffee, 5225 East 38th Avenue
Congress Park Taproom, 833 Colorado Boulevard
El Coqui D'Aqui, 2236 South Colorado Boulevard
The Denver Central Market, 2669 Larimer Street
Five on Black, 1617 California Street
The Goods, 2550 Colfax Avenue
Jozi's Kitchen & Shebeen, 10971 South Parker Road, Parker
The Juicing Tree, 2229 West 32nd Avenue
Maria Empanada — Denver Tech Center, 8000 East Belleview Avenue, Greenwood Village
Mile High Hamburger Mary's, 1336 East 17th Avenue
The Monkey Barrel, 4401 Tejon Street
Pieology Pizzeria, 12073 East Arapahoe Road., Centennial
River and Woods, 2328 Pearl Street, Boulder
Sloan's Lake Tap & Burger, 1565 Raleigh Street
Sonder Coffee & Tea, 9731 East Iliff Avenue
Swine Emporium at the Bar Car, 819 Colorado Boulevard
Thai Curry, 990 West Sixth Avenue
Voicebox, 2601 Walnut Street
White Lies (the alter-ego of Black Eye Coffee), 800 Sherman Street

Keep reading for closings in September.
RESTAURANTS/BARS REOPENING IN SEPTEMBER:*
Adrift, 218 South Broadway

BARS/RESTAURANTS TEMPORARILY CLOSING IN SEPTEMBER:*
The Goods (kitchen fire), 2550 East Colfax Avenue

BARS/RESTAURANTS CLOSING IN SEPTEMBER:*
$5 Buck Drinkery, 730 East Sixth Avenue
Buenos Aires Pizzeria, 1319 22nd Street
Campus Lounge, 701 South University Boulevard
The Celtic Tavern and Delaney's Pub, 1801 Blake Street
Continental Deli, 250 Steele Street
The Good Son, 2550 East Colfax Avenue
Green Island Asian Grill, 990 West Sixth Avenue
Hot Cakes, 1400 East 18th Avenue
Pop's Place, 2020 Lawrence Street
Rooster & Moon Coffee Pub,  955 Bannock Street
Walnut Room, 2 Broadway

*Or earlier, and not mentioned in a previous Roll Call.
What did we miss? Let us know in the comments section or at [email protected]. But first, check our Restaurant Roll Call for August.