Golden Lost Abejas and Nosu Ramen in the Same Week. Who's Still Cooking Downtown?

The auto feeder broke at 2 a.m. It runs the pellet smoker that Old Capitol Grill & Smokehouse uses for its brisket, which needs 14 hours of cooking to be ready for the next day's service. Executive chef John Wilson fixed it himself. In a Westword profile published in August, he hand-fed pellets by the fistful, hour after hour, with an antique miner's helmet lighting his way. Then he went to work.

Two months later, that story says a lot about downtown Golden. In early October, two of the town's independent kitchens closed within days of each other. The places still serving dinner around Washington Avenue now lean heavily on one ownership group that runs four concepts with shared equipment and shared staff. Meanwhile, the newest arrivals on the main block close by mid-afternoon.

Two closures, one owner, one week

Westword reported on October 3 that Nosu Ramen at 700 12th St. was closing after six years. In a statement, owner Brandon Bortles said opening in February 2020 "meant we were facing an uphill climb almost from the beginning." He said "rising operating costs, changing economic conditions and financial pressures made continuing operations and signing a lease extension unsustainable."

Bortles also owned Abejas at 807 13th St. Westword named it one of the best new restaurants of 2015, the year it opened. At that point Abejas had closed temporarily. Bortles described "extended building-related issues" and said financial, insurance and legal matters kept him from discussing the details.

A week later, Westword reported the closure was permanent. The restaurant's statement said that after more than 11 years in Golden, "the restaurant industry has changed considerably over the past few years, and the decision to close has not come easily."

So two of Golden's chef-driven kitchens, a ramen shop and an upscale bistro, are gone, and they were close neighbors on 12th and 13th Streets. Each ran out of its own space with its own lease and its own building to maintain, and the owner's statements point to exactly those costs. No new tenant has been announced for either address.

The other way to run a downtown kitchen

A few doors away, Dean and Aimee Valdez run five places in Golden. According to Westword's profile, Wilson leads four of them:

• Old Capitol Grill & Smokehouse, 1122 Washington Ave., serving smoked meats and comfort food
• Miners Saloon, 1109 Miners Alley, a gastropub with house-made sausages and shareable plates
• Alchemy, a craft cocktail bar across the hall from Miners Saloon
• Bella Colibri, 812 12th St., Southern Italian with house-made pasta

The fifth, The Brick Room sports bar, rounds out the group.

The way they grew explains why they work. Miners Saloon opened in 2016 with a panini press, a Cryovac machine, a sous vide circulator and a combi oven. Wilson told Westword the walk-in "was pretty much a keg cooler." The bar expected food to bring in about 20% of sales. Instead, it earned half its profits from his menu.

The next year, the Valdezes bought Old Capitol Grill. Westword notes the building once served as Colorado's capitol when it was still a territory in 1863. High-priced steaks and slow table turnover cut into profits, so Wilson moved the menu toward smoked meats. "There's not really any smokehouses in the Golden area," he said. The back half of the building still needed filling, and Dean's family is from Southern Italy, so that space became Bella Colibri.

None of the four has what Westword calls a full kitchen. The commissary is Old Capitol Grill, the only one with a proper oven. That one oven bakes cranberry walnut bread for Old Capitol, focaccia for Miners Saloon and Bella Colibri, roast chicken for Miners' salads, and crème brûlée for Bella Colibri. Miners Saloon makes its soups and sausages in the Bella Colibri kitchen early in the week, on the days Bella Colibri is closed.

"I've got to know when they plan on making bread, how much they want to make, because I also get to make cornbread for Old Capitol Grill."

That's Wilson in Westword, describing a daily routine the writer compared to cooking a multi-family Thanksgiving in one kitchen.

Four menus split one oven, one prep schedule and one chef's attention. That's the setup that has lasted downtown. The Bortles restaurants were two separate operations, each with its own building to carry.

What a weeknight dinner looks like now

For anyone planning dinner downtown, the shared setup shows up in the hours. Bella Colibri, the group's sit-down Italian room, serves dinner only. Its site lists no Monday or Tuesday service, which lines up with Westword's account of that kitchen doing prep early in the week.

Here's how the downtown dinner options stack up, with hours from each restaurant's own site. Hours change, so check before you go.

On Monday and Tuesday nights, Miners Saloon and Old Capitol Grill keep the group's kitchens serving while Bella Colibri is dark. Bridgewater Grill opens at 8 a.m. and runs a happy hour from 3 to 6 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, so it covers a long stretch of the day under one roof.

For a sit-down dinner outside the Valdez group, the established names are still on Washington Avenue. Sherpa House at 1518 Washington Ave. takes bookings on its site. At Table Mountain Inn, the restaurant is Table Mountain Grill & Cantina, and the inn's dining page, updated at the end of September, describes its dinner service. Golden Mill on Ford Street booked live music for the evening of October 15.

The new tenants at 1106 Washington keep morning hours

The most recent change on the main block is at 1106 Washington Ave., and both new tenants there run on daytime schedules.

Call Your Mother, the "Jew-ish" deli chain based in Washington, D.C., filed permits for the address this spring, according to BusinessDen's report in The Denver Post. The chain came to Denver in 2023 and has since opened more Colorado locations, including Boulder and Fort Collins. Its Golden location page lists Suite 101 with online ordering. Weekday hours are 6:30 a.m. to 2 p.m., and weekend hours run 6:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Next door in Suite 102, Stay Golden Mercantile had its Golden Chamber ribbon cutting on October 8 and its grand opening on October 10. The shop sells gifts, home décor, candles, self-care items, jewelry and vintage-inspired goods.

So the main block added a bagel counter that closes at 2 p.m. on weekdays and a gift shop in the same month that 12th and 13th Streets lost two dinner kitchens. Downtown's daytime options grew this fall while its dinner options shrank. Most of the evening cooking that remains comes out of kitchens that share ovens and staff, plus a handful of long-running independents.

Making a Golden evening work this fall

A few practical points follow from all this.

1. Sunday dinner ends early at Bella Colibri. Last service is at 8 p.m. If you want a later Sunday meal, Miners Saloon serves until 9 p.m.
2. Monday and Tuesday mean Miners Saloon, Old Capitol Grill, Golden Mill or Bridgewater Grill. Bella Colibri's site lists no service those nights.
3. Late Friday or Saturday means Miners Saloon. Its site lists hours until midnight both nights.
4. For mornings downtown, Call Your Mother opens at 6:30 a.m. That's earlier than any dinner spot on this list.

For ramen, Westword pointed readers to its Best Ramen in Denver list when Nosu closed. No downtown Golden replacement has been announced.

Bella Colibri takes reservations on its own site, and it opens at 5 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday.

When storefronts turn over on 12th, 13th and Washington, it changes how the blocks around them live day to day, and we keep track of that for clients who own near downtown Golden or are thinking about it. If you want to talk through what the changes on these blocks could mean for your home, The Kissel Group is glad to help. Work with Madison + The Kissel Group.