AURORA | This spring was supposed to be one of change for northwest Aurora.
After years of handshaking, lease-signing and renovating, four new restaurants were slated to slide into blighted storefronts along East Colfax Avenue and East Montview Boulevard in the first three months of this year, with a new brewer expected to set up shop in the area in the coming months.
Instead, the newly minted Aurora business owners have either temporarily shuttered or nervously continued to trudge through scant queues days after flipping their “open” signs for the very first time.
The quartet of eateries — Mason’s Dumplings, Baba and Pop’s Pierogi, Third Culture Bakery and Carm & Gia’s Metropolitan — were part of the city’s new restaurant incentive program, which offers grants to restaurateurs interested in revamping derelict storefronts. But The COVID-19 pandemic has thrust the city’s gastronomic poster-children into limbo.
Mason’s Dumplings, a highly anticipated import from Los Angeles, was slated to hold a soft opening for its forthcoming Aurora location at 9655 E. Montview Blvd. on March 18. Citing concerns prompted by the novel coronavirus, Mason’s has indefinitely postponed its opening.
“This is the most difficult time in our company history, but in this extraordinary time we must prioritize the safety of our guests, our staff and their family,” the restaurant wrote in a social media post.
The restaurant had sold-out a reservation-only event for its soft opening, according to Andrea Amonick, manager of the city’s development services division and Urban Renewal Authority.
“They have decided to postpone those reservations and grand opening for another month or two,” Amonick said. “Just until life settles down.”
Attempts to reach managers and owners of Mason’s were not immediately successful.
Third Culture Bakery, another California establishment that opened a second location on Colfax last month, announced a two-week closure on Monday. The bakery, which opened to long lines and great fanfare in early February, will likely continue making deliveries and serving to-go items, Amonick said.
Down the block, the city’s latest brewery is working toward opening in the coming weeks, depending on what happens with closures related to the new coronavirus. Lady Justice Brewing, a membership-based suds slinger that’s operated around the metroplex for the past several years, is expected to take over the former Peak to Peak Tap and Brew location in mid-April, according to Amonick.
“It depends on how the next few weeks play out,” she said.
The former Mu Brewery location was the city’s first foray into injecting capital into northwest Aurora pads in an effort to bolster infrastructure in the area.
“Most of the things we put in or were willing to pay for are not removable,” Amonick said of the city’s restaurant incentive program, which was allocated about $800,000 of one-time funds in 2016. “We want them to stay with the property because then the investment stays in the area.”
City officials worked with landlords to add grease traps, hoods and HVAC systems to decades-old retail buildings with the goal of recruiting restauranteurs to what has traditionally been a stretch with few options to grab a bite.
“We’ve had La Cueva there for quite some time, but until the Stanley came, there had really been nothing else around in that area that was widely visited,” Amonick said.
Lady Justice will be the third brewer in the 9735 E. Colfax Ave. location in about five years. Representatives for the new brewery did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Baba and Pop’s, a bespoke pierogi shop that had its grand opening on Colfax on Friday, plans to keep selling its pre-packaged, frozen pierogies, as well as hot takeout, for the foreseeable future, according to co-owner Katherine Yurek.
Yurek and her husband, Jeremy, have been selling their frozen Polish goods across the metro area and the country for about six years. Katherine said the shop, named after Jeremy’s great grandparents, is currently pinning its new brick-and-mortar business to the pre-made packages of eastern European treats.
“That’s what has really sustained us over the years, and we’re hoping it will sustain us throughout this difficult time,” she said of the frozen pierogies.
After Denver Mayor Michael Hancock announced a moratorium on dining in all Denver bars and restaurants Monday morning, Yurek said she was expecting the same to take place in Aurora.
“We’re basically already expecting that Aurora is going to have a no dining-in ban,” Yurek said. “Therefore we’re going to do curbside takeout of just the pierogies on our menu and frozen packages.”
Gov. Jared Polis enacted a statewide ban on dining-in at bars and restaurants late Monday afternoon. Take-out options and delivery will be allowed to continue during the 30-day ban.
Razz Cortes-Maceda, owner of Carm and Gia’s Metropolitan on Montview, was still offering dine-in service as of Monday morning.
“We’re open for dine-in until we’re told we can’t,” she said.
Polis’ ban went into effect Tuesday morning.
Cortes-Maceda opened her Chicago-inspired eatery in a former salon on Feb. 3. She said patronage had been ramping up at the bistro until last week.
“We’ve only been open four weeks, but the weekly trend has been upward until this past week when it just fell off a cliff,” she said.
After investing some $1.1 million to renovate her space, Cortes-Maceda said she doesn’t have the capital to weather a prolonged, mandatory closure of her business.
“To say we can weather this for 90 days, that would not be true,” she said. “We could withstand a week, but after that things are going to get really dire.”
She said a mandatory closure means losing thousands of dollars in perishable food supplies. She’s already had to tinker with her staffing to adjust for the decrease in customers.
“I have half of what I usually have on hand,” she said of her employees. “My team needs to work. They need jobs, and it’s impacting them and their families.”
The decline in restaurant patronage will also likely mean a delay in Cortes-Maceda’s planned patio expansion, which was previously scheduled to be completed at the end of April.
In the meantime, she said she’ll continue to monitor the situation and make adjustments as necessary while complying with federal and state guidelines.
“It’s not like we could have planned for this, but as the saying goes, the timing couldn’t have been worse,” she said. “My personal saying is that it is what it is and we’re going to do what we can to weather it.”
Amonick said the city will monitor possible abatement measures and help business owners apply to buoying initiatives as they come online.
“As we figure out what those initiatives at the state and federal level are, we will help people apply for those and do what we can to make sure that the businesses recover,” she said. “Hopefully this is very short-lived.”