New Campus Lounge closing after 5 months

The Campus Lounge’s iconic neon sign will go dark again on Monday as owner Daniel Landes shuts down the rebooted bar/restaurant after just over five months in business.

“Basically, it’s a failure,” Landes said over the phone Wednesday. “We failed to generate the revenue that we needed to be a viable business in Denver.”

Landes said the bar, which employs 12 full- and part-time staff, unintentionally alienated longtime customers from its previous incarnation, which was owned and operated by Jim Wiste. The former All-American DU hockey player and Blackhawks veteran died in January at the age of 71, having run the Campus Lounge for 40 years as a sports-happy watering hole in south Denver’s Bonnie Brae neighborhood.

“I’ve been in this city my whole life, and I understand what it’s like to lose beloved bars,” Landes said, referencing shuttered hipster hangout Gabor’s (which he did not own) on East 13th Avenue as an example. “My intention with Campus Lounge was to save an iconic sign, but not the legacy of a great man. And he was a true Denver legend . ... He built a bar that people loved and I didn’t pay Jim’s legacy enough respect because honestly, I’m not passionate about sports.”

Landes is known locally as the founder of Watercourse foods, a popular vegan restaurant that he sold two years ago. He currently runs City, O’ City bar/restaurant on Capitol Hill and the Make Believe bakery, which shares a building with City, O’ City.

The “authentic Dan Landes restaurant” experience he served up at his version of The Campus Lounge — including no TVs and a “conversation-based” layout — did not resonate with people in the neighborhood, he said. The menu featured both vegetarian and meat entrees and snacks, including vegan twists on corn dogs, sliders and soft pretzels.

Landes said he will sell the building, which he “gutted to the studs and rebuilt.” He declined to say how much he had invested or what the new sale price will be.

Landes declined to make Campus Lounge employees available to comment for this story.

“The next person that takes it on is sitting in the catbird seat, because I got to be the fall guy. I got to ruin the Campus Lounge, and I’ve got to own that,” he said. “When I (told the managers), I raised a glass and said, ‘Here’s to hard work not paying off.’ And it was a tough line, but a true line.”