Outside, the venue offers patio space inside, seating is down to thirteen tables from the original 25. “We used plexiglass as an extra barrier.” “Regulation says that the musicians have to be 25 feet from the tables,” Vrakas says. While the staff at the Roxy was excited to get up and running again, business is far from normal because of the pandemic. The Broadway Roxy has showcased musicians every night since. The venue and restaurant were finally able to open again on June 3, with a performance by Denver folksinger Louise, Lately. “It was the worst day of my life,” she says.ĭuring the months that the Denver club was closed, Vrakas and her remaining team remodeled the Roxy’s kitchen and staff lounge. After laying off 87 people at her Denver and Encinitas, California, locations, the remaining staff unplugged the sound equipment and freezers, shut down the gas and power breakers and turned out the lights, not knowing when, or if, they might open again. On March 16, she was forced to shutter her doors until further notice. It wasn’t long before she realized that her venue faced “impending doom.” Owner Paula Vrakas recalls stressing out as she first learned about COVID-19 on the news and watched Colorado start to close.
While the venue has pulled that off so far, with COVID-19 cases on the rise, no federal relief in sight and the threat of more stay-at-home orders looming in Denver, the Roxy’s fate is far from certain. The Broadway Roxy Owner on the Worst Day of Her Lifeīy Katrina Leibee, Westword | The Broadway Roxy, at 554 South Broadway, is one of many venues struggling to stay afloat through the pandemic. If I went around the world five times, I wouldn’t have seen the humanity and all I saw in the twenty years I was there.”
My father always said if he was reincarnated or came back, he would do the same thing over again. “When I originally took over the Zephyr from my dad, I thought it would be a couple of years,” Melnick recalls. Once a mainstay for mid-century tourists traveling Route 40, more recently it had become a hangout for workers at the nearby Anschutz Medical Campus as well as old-timers in the rapidly changing neighborhood. The Zephyr Lounge was a legendary family-owned bar, restaurant and venue that Melnick inherited in 2003 from his father, Barry Melnick, who’d purchased the building at 11940 East Colfax Avenue in 1947. “The train that never leaves Aurora will be leaving the station.” The Zephyr Lounge Reaches the End of the Lineīy Kyle Harris, Westword | “It is with a heavy heart that after 73 years in business, the Zephyr is now closed,” announced owner Myron Melnick on social media on November 1. He plans to open a Sexy Pizza with a yet-to-be-disclosed Denver brewery, a music venue and more. Sexy Pizza founder, former cannabis mogul and 2018 Denver mayoral hopeful Kayvan Khalatbari, who has been a major supporter of comedy, DIY publishing and other creative undertakings in Denver, has spent the past few months buying properties to help turn the town into a cultural hotspot filled with affordable housing and worker-owned businesses.
MUTINY CAFE SERIES
It’s seen bloody miners’ strikes, served as the gender-reassignment capital of the world, ridden the oil industry roller coaster and, most recently, become a cannabis lover’s paradise, with around two dozen dispensaries - one for roughly every 400 people in town.Ĭonservation-minded developer and visionary Dana Crawford has been active in Trinidad since 2016, working on restoring the old opera house, the Fox West Theatre - which has hosted a series of live-stream concerts - and other sites. Split by I-25 and connected by major highways to New Mexico, Kansas and Texas, the old coal-mining town has had a turbulent economy that has boomed and busted since it was founded in 1870. The latest in a string of Denver businesses to announce a presence in the town: Mutiny Information Cafe, a bookshop, record store, all-ages DIY hub and community gathering spot at 2 South Broadway. It’s not business as usual inside the Broadway Roxy (photo by Paula Vrakas)īy Kyle Harris, Westword | The southern Colorado city of Trinidad, population under 9,000, could become the state’s next cultural hub - if a who’s who of Denver entrepreneurs, cultural mavens and preservationists have their way.
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