In a state known for microbreweries, one of the pioneers is saying so long.
Rock Bottom Restaurant & Brewery, that helped launch Colorado’s craft beer movement, has permanently closed its original location on the 16th Street Mall after 35 years. A small typed notice on the front door delivered the goodbye: “Unfortunately, we have permanently closed. Thank you for allowing us to serve the downtown Denver community.”
Rock Bottom was founded in 1991 by Boulder restaurateur Frank Day, who had opened the Walnut Brewery on Pearl Street a year earlier as Boulder’s first brewpub. Day put his second concept on the ground floor of what was then the Prudential financial services building at 16th and Curtis and named it Rock Bottom — a cheeky nod to Prudential’s famous tagline, “Get a piece of the rock.” The brewpub quickly became one of Denver’s first microbreweries and an early rival to John Hickenlooper’s Wynkoop Brewing Co., which had opened in 1988. Hickenlooper told the Denver Post in a 2025 interview that Day “took every one of our ideas and made them so much better. When Frank opened Rock Bottom, it changed the face of brewpubs everywhere.” Day, who built a hospitality empire that included Old Chicago, the Denver ChopHouse, Hotel Boulderado and dozens of other Colorado concepts, died last August at 93…