“Sometimes you’ve just gotta pull the trigger,” says Matt Ciani, one of the co-owners of Englewood’s newest restaurant, the Barn South Broadway. For seventeen years, Ciani worked at Rio Grande Mexican, which is where he met his wife, Erin McCann Ciani, back when they were both in college and she was bartending at the local chain famous for its strong margaritas.
Now, McCann Ciani owns a communications firm and has been able to help launch her husband’s new venture with business partner Chase Devitt. His resume includes operating the now-closed Mr. Miner’s Meat & Cheese. He is also a partner in Boychik and was also a longtime chef and managing partner at Brider, the beloved Platte Street rotisserie chicken joint that shuttered last year after a decade-long run.
“With Brider closing last October, I had been looking to open something new, but I was trying to get out of the city of Denver,” says Devitt, who met Ciani twenty years ago when they both worked at the legendary Dark Horse (RIP) in Boulder…