Twenty New Restaurants and Bars Coming to Denver This Year

Has the Denver restaurant market reached a saturation point? There’s still plenty of room for great food and new ideas in the city, so don’t expect a slowdown in growth in 2019. Need evidence? Here are twenty restaurants and bars we’re looking forward to over the next twelve months. See you at the openings!

American Grind
431 East Bayaud Avenue
Anticipated opening: April
American Grind started out as a food truck in 2014 before opening a counter inside Avanti Food & Beverage in 2017. This year Jared Schwartz and Kade Gianinetti will open a brick-and-mortar version of their locavore-leaning burger joint in the Washington Park West neighborhood, in the same building as the second outpost of Uncle.

Bird Bakery
Location TBD
Anticipated opening: TBD
Elizabeth Chambers is known in San Antonio, Texas, for her sunny bakery that turns out cupcakes, pies, cookies, cakes and sandwiches, even if much of the country thinks of her as the wife of Hollywood star Armie Hammer. In December, Chambers and Hammer (who says he’d like to be known as Elizabeth Chambers’ husband) announced they’ll be building the first Bird Bakery outside of Texas (there’s also one in Dallas), though an exact address has not been nailed down. They chose Denver because Chambers grew up here and still has family here.

Cart-Driver
2239 West 30th Avenue
Anticipated opening: spring
The two LoHi addresses that held Z Cuisine and Z Cuisine À Côté have been vacant since chef Patrick Dupays pulled up stakes in 2016. Cart-Driver owners Andy Niemeyer, Mark Licata and Andrew Birkholz picked up the spot last year and have been slowly converting it into a more spacious version of their RiNo wood-fired eatery built into a shipping container. While initial estimates had the opening at the end of 2018, it’s now looking like spring 2019.

Chicken Rebel
West 36th Avenue and Tejon Street
Anticipated opening: summer
Lydie Lovett’s chicken-sandwich business, which currently calls Finn’s Manor home, will open in a new slot next door to Mythology Distillery in the Highland neighborhood.

Cochino Taco
176 South Broadway
Anticipated opening: spring
Johnny Ballen opened his first taqueria in Englewood in 2016 and will make it a duo this spring. The new Cochino will take over the space most recently occupied by Gary Lee’s Motor Club & Grub.

Della Radice
2955 Ulster Street
Anticipated opening: March
Chef Cristino Griego is nearly ready to open Della Radice, which will specialize in small plates of wine-friendly food from Italy, Spain and France. The restaurant will open in the Stapleton spot that was formerly home to the Bistro at Stapleton, which closed nearly two years ago.

Gyu Kaku Japanese BBQ
1998 18th Street
Anticipated opening: February/March
The Japanese grill-your-own-meat chain with more than 700 locations worldwide is coming to the new neighborhood behind Union Station, across the street from Whole Foods. Gyu Kaku is currently hiring, so it could open within the next month.

Maine Shack
1535 Central Street
Anticipated opening: spring
Culinary Creative Group (the folks behind Morin, Señor Bear and Bar Dough, to name a few) is bringing New England-style lobster rolls and other seafood specialties to LoHi and will soon open in the space previously occupied by Uber Eats.

Noble Riot
1336 27th Street
Anticipated opening: spring
Scott and Nicole Mattson, the owners of Nocturne Jazz & Supper Club, will open a wine bar next door to Nocturne along with Troy Bowen, founder of the Colorado Natural Wine Consortium. They’ll start out small in the space recently vacated by cocktail bar Greenlight Lab, but hope to expand into the adjoining alley space over the summer.

Owlbear Barbecue
2826 Larimer Street
Anticipated opening: spring
A couple of years have elapsed since Karl Fallenius served his Texas-inspired barbecue on a regular basis, but we can still taste the smoky brisket fat on our lips. Licensing, permitting and vandalism have slowed the project over the past year, but we’re hoping to see smoke rising once again in Owlbear’s new home next door to Our Mutual Friend Brewing.

Quiero Arepas
1859 South Pearl Street
Anticipated opening: spring
Igor and Beckie Panasewicz have single-handedly turned Venezuelan arepas from an obscure street food into one of the most craveable foods in Denver over the past eight or nine years. They started with food trucks before becoming one of the anchor eateries at Avanti Food & Beverage, and will open their first dedicated restaurant in Platt Park this spring.

RiNo Yacht Club
Location: TBD
Anticipated opening: summer
Mary Allison Wright and McLain Hedges closed their bar inside the Source at the end of January with plans to relocate to their own space this summer. They haven’t announced an address yet, but wherever they end up, you can expect the same creative cocktails and carefully selected boutique wines and champagnes (and hopefully some excellent homemade pie).

Run for the Roses
1801 Blake Street
Anticipated opening: spring
Steven Waters is nearly ready to open his cocktail bar, named in honor of the Kentucky Derby, in the space beneath what was previously the Celtic Tavern.

Snarfburger
2535 Federal Boulevard
1001 East 11th Avenue
Anticipated opening: spring/summer
Sandwich maven Jimmy Seidel got his start in Boulder before bringing a number of Snarf’s sandwich shops to Denver, but he kept his tiny Snarfburger shack a Boulder secret until now. Two Snarfburgers will debut in Denver this year, both alongside Snarf’s outposts. One will be in a shack-style building on Federal Boulevard, and the other is taking over an old coin-op laundry in Capitol Hill.

Tessa Delicatessen
5724 East Colfax Avenue
Anticipated opening: May/June
Chef Vince Howard moved to Denver from Los Angeles, where he ran Del Rey Deli. He’ll add a similar all-day deli to the stretch of Colfax Avenue dividing the Park Hill and Montclair neighborhoods.

Third Culture Bakery
9935 East Colfax Avenue, Aurora
Anticipated opening: May/June
Third Culture was founded in the San Francisco Bay area two years ago, and now owners Sam Butarbutar and Wenter Shyu have targeted Aurora for their first bakery outside of California. The bakery specializes in rice-flour mochi muffins and other Asian-inspired treats.

Toro
150 Clayton Lane
Anticipated opening: late spring
Cherry Creek hotels have become dining destinations over the past couple of years, and the JW Marriott is hoping to keep up with this outpost of chef/restaurateur Richard Sandoval’s Latin/Asian fusion eatery.

Restaurant Tonno
2201 West 32nd Avenue
Anticipated opening: late spring
Until last fall, Denver had no restaurants dedicated exclusively to chef’s tasting menus. Beckon became the first, and chef Alec Bruno will add his take on multi-course dining to the LoHi neighborhood in an intimate underground space this spring.

Uncle
95 South Pennsylvania Street
Anticipated opening: April/May
If you love the noodle bowls at the original Uncle in LoHi but can never manage to land a table, you’ll be happy to hear that founder Tommy Lee is doubling down with a new spot in Washington Park West.

Zomo
3457 South Broadway
Anticipated opening: April
Alysia Davey and Ryan Anderson took over the former home of El Tepehuan (which moved down the block) two years ago and have been building their restaurant themselves ever since. The hard work is nearly done, and downtown Englewood will soon be able to experience Vietnamese-inspired dishes with homestyle Midwestern influences.