The article cited a few factors: covid, ongoing construction in the area, competition from other “beer bar” places. Changing demographics definitely seems like part of it, the crowd in that part of town has changed into more of a 24/7 “spring break woo” crowd and I doubt any of them are particularly interested in beer. I didn’t go there all that often because I wasn’t a fan of the location, but it was a big hit with people visiting from out of town.
That’s crazy, I haven’t been there a lot… because I don’t go to Denver a lot… but every time I was there, I’d stop in. If was always packed to the brim… I assumed it was a forever staple.
It was definitely packed whenever I went, but I’ve also heard worse and smaller locations are paying more than a couple hundred grand a year in rent, so I’m sure it’s gotten a lot tougher to stay in business over the last decade.
There are so many craft breweries here. I’m sorry to say I haven’t heard of them until this post. I live just North of Denver and have a brewery literally across the field from my house and I’m not to far from Left Hand. Sounds like it was an incredible place though.
They aren’t far from Coors Field and with the pandemic and baseball being shut down for so long I’m sure didn’t help either.
Real estate is so disgustingly out of hand on the front range; I’m sure we will see more of this and not just from the craft beer industry.
Real estate prices have made it difficult for everyone. There’s a big mismatch between the coastal RE prices and flyover wages. It makes it hard to do anything interesting. You need to hit the ground making so much profit just to cover your rent that everything aims for the broadest possible appeal with the slickest marketing. That means everyone is chasing the same small sliver of high income people and everyone else can pound sand.
I actually just left Denver a year or so ago and got a better paying job in a smaller town.
Great bar, sorry to see it go. I always hit it when I came to Denver. Yes, I would think that with people working at home, their business must have took a major hit.
No offense to the Denver breweries, but get Belgian ale on tap is a wonderful thing.
Falling Rock was the first place I tried a lot of classic Belgian beers years ago. Thirsty Monk brewery was good too but they closed last summer I think. Cheeky Monk was a good belgian beer bar but they’ve been closed a long time at this point. Just doesn’t seem like much interest in Belgian beer anymore.
I was referring directly to falling rock in Lodo. I think the availability of quality local craft beer likely had a hand in them closing. I would rather spend money on locally well made beer then pay a bunch of snobs for pliny the elder.
The main explanation I heard about Falling Rock was construction on the street made it impossible to get there but I don’t think that is true given all the other bars on the same block having no issue staying afloat.
IMO Falling Rock fell off because they didn’t want to cater to the popular hazy/pastry/kettle sour trinity but they also didn’t try to drive interest in what they wanted to sell. By the end their taplist looked more like a chain craft beer bar’s selection than one of the leading craft bars in the country.
Bruz has a couple locations including one not far from the old Thirsty Monk location. De Steeg tucked away on Tennyson is also all Belgian. Both breweries suffer from not making their beers as crisp and digestible as Belgian versions but that seems generally true of most American takes. We’re definitely in a lull for the abbey/trappist styles but saisons aren’t too hard to find around town.
