Most of them had weathered the pandemic, somehow, but by this time last year, Denver restaurateurs were fed up. Without some changes, they worried that the industry was cooked. Not only relatively new restaurants, like Noisette, were closing, but so were longtime mainstays.
The owners still in business were tired of balancing increasing costs — for labor, for supplies, even for rent, despite high vacancy rates — with keeping menu prices palatable. Finally, Visit Denver, working with Denver’s Economic Development & Opportunity department and inKind, created the Denver Restaurant Liaison Project. Together, they commissioned two industry veterans to research the state of Denver restaurants, and over the next six months, Dana Query and Adam Schlegel conducted dozens of interviews — not just with restaurateurs, but with city officials.
Comments from those interviews are sprinkled through the just-released report. And on the Westword Facebook post about the report, Denver consumers have plenty more to say, particularly about the cost of dining out. Says Craig:…