One of Denver’s longest-running and most beloved Mexican restaurants has closed for good. But its space on Santa Fe Drive will soon reopen, reviving another local favorite specializing in the same cuisine.
El Noa Noa Mexican Restaurant officially shuttered on April 1, owners Vidal and Leticia Banuelos confirmed to The Denver Post, marking the end of a 45-year run. On-again-off-again eatery El Chingon Bistro is expected to take its place by the end of the month.
Leticia Banuelos’ parents opened El Noa Noa in 1980 at 722 N. Santa Fe Dr. The restaurant had not served diners in several weeks prior to its official closing date, as the couple had temporarily ceased operations in hopes of going on vacation. But those plans got postponed, they said, and as they started interviewing people to reopen, the numbers just didn’t make sense.
Vidal Banuelos said the restaurant never recovered from the financial hardships of the COVID-19 pandemic. Even after dining restrictions lifted, the number of guests who visited never rebounded, including El Noa Noa’s typically robust lunch crowd that pivoted to working from home.
“We were hoping that things (would) get better over the last few years after COVID was over, but then inflation hit really hard. So the cost of everything went extremely high and our profit margins were basically disappeared. And any time we raise the price one something, people complain about it,” Vidal said.
All of those compounding factors made reopening too daunting a task. “At the end of the day, we run out of juice, we run out of energy to do it,” Vidal said.
Just as the Banueloses were mulling that tough decision, Lorenzo Nuñez Jr., proprietor of El Chingon, came knocking. It had been more than a year since El Chingon had closed its space in LoHi, at 1691 Central St., and Nuñez had been searching for a location where he could resurrect the concept and return it to its roots. El Chingon first operated in Arvada then moved to a location on Tennyson Avenue where it welcomed diners for almost a decade, until 2021.
The move to LoHi ended up being ill-fated, according to Nuñez, because the restaurant lost its identity. (The closure was not due to unpaid taxes, he said, though El Chingon did shutter temporarily at one point as it worked to pay some back taxes.)
“We were trying to be too many things to too many people,” Nuñez said. “We’re a restaurant first with a complimentary bar program… In LoHi, there were evenings it was like a nightclub, others it was a restaurant. Other nights, it was just a bar to drink. That becomes difficult to operate. When you lose your identity in that respect, you lose your base clientele that love what you do.”
Because of that, Nuñez plans to “recapture the essence of who we are” at the new El Chingon, which he hopes to open by the end of May. Guests will always find the restaurant’s chile relleños, enchiladas, carne asada and chicharrones available, he said, but the rest of the menu will change seasonally under the direction of his nephew, chef David Lopez.
The bar will serve beer, wine and cocktails and the location’s iconic patio will remain open during the summer months so people can sip margaritas in the sun as they did for the last 45 years.
“Having the opportunity to take this over from the family is a challenge to follow in their footsteps, but also an opportunity to carry on a legacy if you will,” Nuñez said.
The Banuelos are excited to hand over the keys to El Chingon, which they hope brings a fresh energy to the space. They aren’t sure what they will do next, though it likely won’t be in the hospitality industry, Vidal said. In the meantime, they thanked all the customers they welcomed over the last four-plus decades and said they are considering taking that postponed vacation after all.