Denver Beer is the latest name to set up shop n Olde Town Arvada, whose locally owned food-and-beverage scene is gaining notice well beyond the suburb’s limits.
Arvada district booming with addition of more restaurants, bars
When Denver Beer Co. co-founders Charlie Berger and Patrick Crawford originally came up to Olde Town Arvada, they weren’t there to scout a new location. Opening a third brewery and tasting room was something they had been talking about for a while, but the craft brewers hadn’t yet narrowed down a location.
“We went there looking for some used equipment that was for sale and then fell in love with Olde Town,” Crawford said. “It just has a feel about it. It’s hard to put your finger on it. It’s a combination of the people, the restaurants, all those things. It had this vibe where I wanted to spend some time.”
Denver Beer’s Arvada taproom will open in early 2017 in a renovated former Chevy dealership, the brewery’s signature outdoor patio spilling out to the sidewalk along Olde Wadsworth.
“Olde Town doesn’t have many places to drink a beer outside. There are some small patios and rooftop decks but nothing really great,” Crawford said. “The opportunity to have a really big communal beer garden where you can
bring your dog, sit on a bench and hang out with your friends — that’s what we’re about.”
Denver Beer is the latest big name to set up shop in the historic downtown business district, its locally owned food-and-beverage scene gaining notice well beyond the Jefferson County suburb’s limits.
Uptown staple Steuben’s opened its second Denver-area location in an old Gunther Toody’s on Ralston Road this spring. Wash Park’s Homegrown Tap & Dough, owned by the same restaurant group behind Park Burger, arrived soon after, in a prime spot at Olde Wadsworth Boulevard and Grandview Avenue. GB Fish & Chips, with shops on South Broadway, Sloan’s Lake and Park Hill, is under construction on Ralston, its fourth metro-area location.
They’re not alone: School House Kitchen, Kline’s Beer Hall, The Bluegrass Coffee & Bourbon Lounge, Four Barrel Bar & BBQ and New Image Brewing have opened for business in Olde Town over the past 18 months, joining Silvi’s Kitchen, Arvada Tavern and other district mainstays.
“You get one big name and one thing going and it just seems like it’s like dominoes,” said Karen Miller, president of the Olde Town Arvada Business Improvement District and owner of Paws ‘n’ Play pet supply store on Grandview.
Number of factors
City officials and business owners credit a number of factors for Olde Town’s food and beverage boom — city investments to improve curb appeal and make the district more pedestrian friendly, the much-anticipated commuter rail line coming this fall, key properties finally becoming available for redevelopment and something a little more abstract.
“It’s the authentic-ness,” Miller said. “These are historic buildings. This is the real thing. You can create all the replicas you want, but if you look at the types of businesses Belmar has, it’s more chains. It’s not the entrepreneurs.”
“Everybody brings their own spin, their own life,” she said. “These aren’t just businesses that put an oven in and open the doors and expect people to come. These are businesses that bring people in.”
Those people are also bringing their wallets, and Olde Town sales tax collections are soaring.
The city of Arvada collected $971,343in sales tax in Olde Town in 2015, more than double the amount collected 10 years before, and a 12.5 percent increase year over year, according to the Arvada Economic Development Association.
This year, Olde Town’s sales tax numbers could break the $1 million mark, and there are still more “high-end, top-of-the-line prospects” circling the market, said AEDA director Ryan Stachelski .
“People are aware. It’s been discovered,” Stachelski said. “There were enough of the Silvis and School Houses and Arvada Taverns that they proved the market. Steuben’s is here, Homegrown is here.”
There’s runway for a few more years of growth too, Stachelski said. Projects on the horizon include the retenanting of the former Arvada Beer Co. space at the corner of Grandview and Olde Wadsworth, as well as the redevelopment of the old Griff ’s Hamburgers stand at Olde Wadsworth and Ralston. Larimer Associates, the group behind Larimer Square and the retail leasing at Denver Union Station, purchased the iconic red A-frame in 2015.
Economic development officials are also focused on expanding the boundaries of what people consider Olde Town beyond Olde Wadsworth and Grandview to Ralston Road and Yukon Street, he said.
“We have increased capacity for more of those things to come in here,” Stachelski said.
“It’s just insane”
Restaurant development is on a tear not only in Arvada but regionwide, said Denver restaurant consultant John Imbergamo.
In the U.S., restaurant sales beat out grocery sales for the first time in 2015, according to an August report from CBRE Research. In Denver, the number of quickservice restaurants increased 67 percent year-over-year.
“We’re all going to start putting bumper stickers on our cars that say, ‘Honk if you’re not opening a new restaurant,’ ” Imbergamo said. “It’s just insane, the pace and breadth of what’s going on in the restaurant business.”
Arvada’s growth, though, does seem to be outpacing that of other Denver suburbs, he said. The city’s openness to providing economic incentives to restaurants, as well as the caliber of restaurateurs who have already chosen Arvada are likely influences.
“If someone like Josh Wolkon is building in Arvada, that goes a long ways toward mitigating some of the worries that people may have going into a suburb,” Imbergamo said. “It shines a spotlight on the town.”
Wolkon, owner of Vesta Dipping Grill, Steuben’s and Ace Eat Serve, said he looked at other suburban locations, including Belleview Station in the Denver Tech Center, but Olde Town just felt right for his second Steuben’s.
(The restaurant also received economic incentives from the city of Arvada worth $250,000, the majority of which comes in the form of a 50 percent sales-tax rebate, according to AEDA.)
“I love the realness and soul and history and vibe of Olde Town. That’s really hard to re-create in some of these newer, more obvious developments out there,” Wolkon said. “It’s fun to be part of a redevelopment — we did it in LoDo 19 years ago with Vesta, we did it in Uptown 10 years ago with Steuben’s. We hope to be part of that in Arvada too, and see a bunch of businesses come together and the community come together.”
With the train to Denver Union Station opening this fall, Arvada is almost becoming more of a borough than a suburb, he said.
“The reality is, Denver is getting close to a saturation point. It’s much harder to find reasonable real estate in Denver,” Wolkon said. “Speaking for a lot of our employees and the younger demographic, they’re getting priced out of Denver. They’re moving to places like Wheat Ridge and Edgewater and Arvada.”
That doesn’t mean that Steuben’s hasn’t had to make adjustments for its new audience, although Wolkon said they’re trying not to react too quickly.
“The hours are a little different. We close a little earlier and we open earlier on weekends for brunch,” he said. “There’s a bit of an education process. Just because we have an amazing reputation in Denver, that doesn’t mean people in Arvada know who we are at all.”
Some success
When Scott Spears decided to open School House Kitchen in the original 1882 Arvada schoolhouse on Olde Wadsworth in 2015, his goal was to open “one of the coolest restaurants in Arvada, not Colorado.”
An Arvada native, he already had some success in Olde Town — he also owns Scrumptious, the ice cream and candy shop that has been an anchor along Grandview since 2010.
“I didn’t want to compete with anyone in Denver. I didn’t want to play with those guys. It’s a hard industry,” Spears said. “When we opened School House, we were very lucky that we did a good enough job that we started getting mentioned with some of these other big names. We were on the Eater Hot List for a few months. Everything just keeps rolling.”
With some of those same Denver names now coming to Arvada too, Spears said he isn’t worried about over-saturation.
“For Arvada, prices are ridiculously high right now, but if you compare it other areas, it’s doable. It’s not a Pearl Street in Boulder,” Spears said. “There’s a lot more people down there enjoying Olde Town and really seeing what it has to offer.”
“Arvada is not going to see a bunch of high-rises built in it. We need people to come from the outskirts of Arvada and Wheat Ridge and Denver,” he said. “The cooler it is, the more options there are, the more people who are going to come in.”
“I love the realness and soul and history and vibe of Olde Town. That’s really hard to re-create in some of these newer, more obvious developments out there.” Josh Wolkon, owner of Vesta Dipping Grill, Steuben’s and Ace Eat Serve