A changing LoDo block will be home to three new pre- and post-game party venues later this year with the opening of a Tex-Mex restaurant, brewery and rock and roll bar that will be able to accommodate around 600 patrons.
El Tejano, Smash Face Brewery & Taproom and Loaded will take up 25,000 square feet at 1941-49 Market St., with 10,000 square feet of Coors Field-facing rooftop.
The buildings were occupied until October by Tavern Downtown, Cowboy Lounge and Cook Street School. Last February, Denver’s Frank Schultz sold the real estate to Fillmore Capital Partners for $11.25 million.
RELATED: Country star Dierks Bentley is opening a bar in LoDo
“As with our other venues around the country, we’re coming to Denver to join the community,” Knitting Factory Entertainment CEO Morgan Margolis said in a press release. “We think there are tremendous opportunities in LoDo — one of the city’s oldest neighborhoods, yet so close to Denver’s star attraction, Coors Field.”
The Knitting Factory, which started in 1987 in New York as a music and performance venue, is partnering with Los Angeles-based restaurateurs Buckhead Group and San Francisco-based Fillmore Capital on this Denver project. Two of their new-to-Denver concepts hail from L.A., while one is a first, anywhere.
El Tejano will sell lots of tacos, carne asada tater tots, street corn and a bar’s worth of free chips and salsa in the former Tavern space. It has three locations already in Los Angeles.
RELATED: Two long-running LoDo bars have closed, and there are more changes in store for Market Street
Next door to El Tejano in Denver, Loaded will be a “beautifully brash, 80’s-style rock and roll bar serving up cheap drinks, music theme nights and throwback vinyl,” according to the release. Loaded had previously operated in L.A. before closing and rebranding a few years ago.
And Smash Face is going to have its own Denver brewer who will brew beers named after “smash-faced” dog breeds — Pug Porter, Boxer Belgian, Shih Tzu Sour, Pekingese Pilsner, etc. That’s a new concept altogether. We can expect these three destinations to debut later in 2020.
