Cool River Café has become the latest Denver Tech Center-area steakhouse to shutter, closing for good Wednesday.
Callers to the restaurant receive a voice message saying, "As of Wednesday, Aug. 10 at 2 p.m., we'll be closing our doors for good. We'd like to thank all our loyal customers for 16 great years."
The parent company of DTC Cool River Café, which opened at 8000 E. Belleview Ave. C 10 in Greenwood Village in 2000, is Dallas-based Consolidated Restaurant Operations Inc. Consolidated operates 91 full-service and 24 franchise restaurants throughout the U.S., United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates and in Egypt.
Bill Watson, vice president of marketing for Consolidated, said the company chose to close the Greenwood Village location because of climbing rents.
"We closed it for the worst of reasons: We were unable to come to terms with our landlord at continuing the lease for the space," Watson said.
Watson also said parking, which is shared with other retail shops and restaurants in the center, played a role in the decision.
"Over the years there has been some frustration with the need for convenient parking, especially in foul weather," Watson said. "On weekend nights it could get a little claustrophobic. ... There was a cap on how much we could do. But we never had a problem attracting customers."
The shuttering of its DTC location comes after a Cool River Café opened in June on the corner of 15th and Arapahoe streets in downtown Denver.
"We were fortunate that we were able to open the downtown location early this summer," Watson said. "We intend to serve the greater Denver area, just not in the Greenwood Village location."
The Greenwood Village location's closure also follows the January closing of Brook's Steakhouse, a 20-year staple in the DTC area. Then-owner Robert Melton at the time told the DBJ that the numerous steak restaurants that had opened there in recent years led to increased competition.
“When we first opened, we were the only fine-dining steakhouse south of Cherry Creek. And we were extremely successful ... Because of that, everybody followed,” Melton told the DBJ in a prior interview. “The prime steakhouse business is a limited market. (Other restaurants) have diluted the market.”
Besides Cool River Café, other southeast-metro-area steakhouses include Del Frisco’s Steakhouse, Shanahan’s, Ted’s Montana Grille, Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse, Perry’s Steakhouse and the new Eddie Merlot's, all within a few miles of each other.
But Watson said the competition in the area was not one of the reasons the DTC Cool River closed.
"We have seen a lot of steakhouses come and go," he said. "There's not too much competition. There's a lot of demand and the demand is for those high-end steakhouses. We remain committed to Denver. We're alive and well."
Elsewhere, longtime restaurateur and executive chef Ignacio Leon announced he has closed his Mexican restaurant Paxia, located at 4001 Tejon St. in Denver's Sunnyside neighborhood.
Leon said in a statement that he plans to focus on Latigo, his newly opened spot at 2229 Blake St. in Denver's Ballpark neighborhood.
"Latigo provides us with the opportunity to showcase a more modern and refined version of Mexican cuisine in one of Denver’s most lively neighborhoods,” Leon said.
