The lunch special on a recent weekday at Tommy’s Thai, a family-owned restaurant that opened on East Colfax Avenue in 1988, was pad khing — chicken and vegetables stir-fried in black bean sauce with rice and ginger. Light jazz played on the speakers as an employee joyfully chatted with customers.
From the battered streets of the storied Bluebird District, however, the storefronts for Tommy’s, at 3410 E. Colfax Ave., and other nearby businesses were hardly visible as construction workers muscled the heavy machinery they are using to build a new bus line from under the ground up.
The Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) line will upgrade public transportation between downtown Denver and Aurora once it’s completed. But the three-year project, which began in the fall, has unnerved Colfax restaurants who are reeling from a sharp drop in clientele and sales. Many say they are barely holding on and worry they’ll be pushed out by the new line once it’s finished.
Banners and signs everywhere reassure passers-by that business is ongoing during construction.
“This whole block is really struggling,” said Maud Schaefer, the family operator of Tommy’s Thai. “People are avoiding Colfax, and I don’t blame them.”
The latest to close — and to blame the construction — is the highly lauded Misfit Snack Bar, which operated inside Middleman, a bar on 3401 E. Colfax Ave., said chef Bo Porytko, who ran it. Middleman itself will stay open, but has been sold to new owners. Porytko did not want to say who the buyers are.
Colfax and Cream, a coffee and ice-cream shop with locations along Broadway and Pearl streets, named itself after the local drag where it opened its first store last year. The titular shop closed in April after months of operating at a loss, which co-owner Senait Bailey attributed to in an e-mail as “significant challenges” posed by construction.
And Lucky Noodles, at 1201 E. Colfax Ave., left the street for Broadway earlier this year, but was replaced by Uptown Banh Mi & Pho.
Restaurants neighboring Tommy’s Thai say their fate is uncertain as chain-link fencing blocks access to curbside parking spaces, of which there are fewer. Schaefer said customers called her to ask if she had moved; they drove up and down Colfax and couldn’t find the entrance.
To help, the nonprofit Bluebird District, whose members represent a nine-block stretch of Colfax in the City Park neighborhood, opened a parking lot between Adams and Cook streets.
Meanwhile, Schaefer has applied for a grant from the city of Denver’s Business Impact Opportunity Fund to help cover bills for the summer. Businesses whose revenue has declined by more than 20% since the BRT construction began can qualify for the grants.
More than 20 businesses facing the BRT project have already received grants totaling $285,000, said Shelby Morse, a spokesperson for the Denver Economic Development & Opportunity office, in a statement. Recipients included Bad Axe Throwing, Satellite Bar, Tasty Thai, Voodoo Doughnut and Tight End Bar. Applications for the next round of funding closed earlier this month, she said.
The economic development office and the Colfax Avenue Business Improvement District (BID) speak with business owners regularly about the BRT progression, Morse said.
But most restaurant owners interviewed for this story said the efforts from city government have underwhelmed them.
Clientele was down by half at Middleman and Misfit Snack Bar, which opened five years ago, Porytko said. He shifted his attention exclusively to Molotov Kitschen + Cocktails, his acclaimed Ukrainian restaurant a block west on 3333 E. Colfax Ave., where he said business is down 20%.
“There are ten other businesses I’ve talked to that are just month to month” from deciding whether they stay open, Porykto said.
He likened the situation to the extended renovation of the 16th Street mall, and to another construction project that led him to close Rebel Restaurant in RiNo in 2018.
Other restaurants are entirely isolated by fencing, dirt and equipment. Maria Empanada opened a standalone shop on 2730 E. Colfax Ave. in February and was surrounded by construction ephemera this month. As was Lula Rose General Store, a coffee shop in a restored diner on 3434 E. Colfax Ave. that’s taken to TikTok to show its impediments and gripe at the city.
The street’s bar scene has also taken a hit. Those that would see an uptick in summer service during the annual Denver Pride parade will lose out on customers this June, as the parade is rerouted down 17th Avenue to avoid the clogged streets.
Steven Alix owns X Bar, Squire Lounge and Tight End Bar, all along the upcoming BRT line. He closed one property, Crazy Horse Kitchen and Bar, this year and has seen sales drop by 38% from last year at Tight End, he said.
Tight End, an LGBTQ bar at 1501 E. Colfax Ave., is near the kickoff location for the parade (Sunday, June 29), which Alix hopes will draw onlookers. He’s optimistic the new bus line will usher in a beautiful transformation of Colfax, but is also worried the city won’t do enough to save more existing businesses in the meantime.
“When people start to make a different bar their home bar, they don’t necessarily come back,” Alix said. “We have to hope that when this is done, we get our customers back.”
In some sections of East Colfax between the State Capitol and Colorado Boulevard, workers have already erected sleek white arches as part of the BRT upgrade. Once construction wraps on the eastbound lanes, it’ll shift to the westbound lanes, Porytko said. The new line will be completed in 2027, according to the city.
Schaefer, who inherited Tommy’s Thai from her parents, is the sole full-time family member at the restaurant. For her, business hasn’t been the same since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. She recently changed her hours and launched new happy hour specials to bring people back.
“The mom-and-pop places — which Colfax is — they’re slowly disappearing because of many, many things,” she said.
