Something new is cooking at the former Wash Park Grille.
Real estate broker and investor Aaron Grant, of Grant Real Estate Co., purchased the shuttered eatery and its real estate at 1096 S. Gaylord St. in Denver for $6 million last week. The property has been mired in a messy legal battle between one of the restaurant’s owners and the estate of his deceased partner, and was seized by the city for unpaid taxes late last year.
The deal came in at $500,000 below the list price of $6.5 million. The 10,200-square-foot building includes another closed restaurant, Agave Taco Bar, and a 1,400-square-foot office on the second floor. The deal works out to $588 per square foot.
Grant, who lives in Wash Park and owns Park Coworking on the same block, told BusinessDen he bought the real estate with Kris Johnson, a Hilltop resident who works in oil and gas and has an office on South Gaylord. They financed the purchase with a $4.3 million loan from Star Mesa Capital, a local lender, set to mature in two years, according to public records.
Grant and Johnon have brought in Bart Hickey, formerly managing partner of Larimer Square’s Capital Grille, to reopen restaurants in the building, Grant said.
The Agave space will become The Taco Garage, focused on street tacos and margaritas. And the former Grille space will become Wash Park Social, which Grant describes as a “Colorado grill.”
Grant grew up on a farm outside the Weld County town of Mead but would accompany his mother when she drove to a salon on South Gaylord. He first went to Wash Park Grille in college, and moved to the neighborhood 13 years ago.
“I’ve just really always had a strong affinity for South Gaylord,” he said.
The goal with Wash Park Social is to “carry forth (Wash Park Grille’s) neighborhood tradition, but at the same time do something new,” Grant said.
Grant expects both restaurants to open in the spring.
Jeff Hallberg of Lee & Associates, who brokered the deal on behalf of Wash Park Grill owner Jeff Estey, said he received “three or four offers.”
“Jeff definitely wanted to see it stay a restaurant. It’s a great location for a restaurant, a hard corner with patio seating, and a lot of opportunity to grow another restaurant,” Hallberg said.
Estey and Greg Sauber, the duo behind Wash Park Grille, purchased 1096 S. Gaylord St. in 1998 for $1 million, a year after they opened the restaurant at the corner of Gaylord and Mississippi Avenue. They operated it together until Sauber’s death in 2022.
The Italian restaurant and the neighboring sister restaurant that the two co-owned, Agave, struggled after that. The restaurants were seized by the city for back taxes last December, briefly reopened, closed for good in February, and went on the market in March.
“I’m just done, I can’t do it anymore,” Estey said then. “I have to liquidate everything.”
While the businesses were going downhill, Sauber’s estate was suing Estey for allegedly stealing $1 million in insurance proceeds rather than buying out the estate’s share of the companies. Estey countersued for $170,000 he claimed Sauber took before his death.
The case was personal and contentious. In March, the estate accused Estey of “treat(ing) the business credit card as his personal piggy bank,” citing trips to Paris, Cancun, casinos in Las Vegas, hotel stays and strip club visits. “The term ‘bleeding money’ is an accurate depiction of the current status of the LLCs,” it said of the restaurants and their real estate.
Estey became offended by the estate’s claim that he ran Sauber’s legacy into the ground.
“The estate wants to keep pounding me down, making me the villain,” he said. “I didn’t ask for Greg to die. I didn’t ask for my partner of 28 years to just die and for it to all fall on me.”
The dispute was settled in June and a third-party administrator was hired to split proceeds from the sale of 1096 Gaylord St., since the Sauber estate did not trust Estey to do so.
Estey did not respond to requests for comment about his property sale last week.
BusinessDen staffers Thomas Gounley and Justin Wingerter contributed reporting.
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