But last week, she shuttered A Line Boutique’s store at 1750 Wewatta St., telling BusinessDen the location lost $400,000 last year.

“It never came back,” she said of the pre-pandemic environment downtown.

Berensten bought A Line in 2012 when it had a single location in Greenwood Village. Along with the store at the base of the Coloradan condominium complex, she added locations in Denver’s Cherry Creek, plus Salt Lake City and Carlsbad, California. She moved the original store in 2018 to the Denver Tech Center’s Belleview Station.

Those four stores are profitable, she said, selling designer brands like L’agence, Zimmermann and Max Mara. But with the 3,200-square-foot Union Station store deep in the red, she said, 2024 was the only year in her tenure that A Line’s overall sales numbers shrunk.

“Every other store grew, but Union Station dragged it down,” she said.

Berensten blames vagrancy and theft issues, and a lease she now sees as overpriced.

At a crossroads: Downtown Denver is waiting for its rebound

People have walked in and stolen thousands of dollars worth of purses, she said. Another woman stayed in the dressing room for hours past closing before finally running out the door with clothes. Berensten said building security has been unresponsive in the last few years and hiring her own private security guard would cost too much.

“Guys come in and grab a $2,000 purse and walk out. And then the police are like ‘Did anyone get hurt? No? Then file insurance if you want,’” she said. “We have homeless people sitting right against our door and no one will do anything. You would think they would. We have to keep the door locked and have a Ring doorbell.”

Since the pandemic, A Line’s Union Station spot has lost seven employees — compared to one across all her other stores — nearly all because they felt unsafe, Berensten said. One stylist even brought in bear spray for protection before she quit.

Berensten said she’s paying rent of $55 a square foot per year for the space along with utilities, property taxes and insurance as part of the 10-year lease she signed in 2019. She thinks the market value today is closer to $30 a foot, mainly because of the area’s decline in recent years.

“The current market rate is half of what our lease is. We’ve tried and tried and tried to get it negotiated, and (our landlord Ascentrist) wouldn’t even come to the table,” she said.

With A Line leaving, six of the 10 retail units at the Coloradan are available, according to a JLL listing. The restaurant Eggs Inc also closed there earlier this month after opening in January.

Berensten said the focus is now on her four other stores and continued out-of-state expansion, hopefully getting to a total of 10 stores. She thinks two spots is a good number for Colorado. A Line also closed a Castle Rock spot when its lease was up in March.

While her remaining stores are doing well, Berensten said it’s a challenging time in general for brick-and-mortar.

“Retail just doesn’t have margin, especially with tariffs now and online (shopping). It has never been worse in 13 years,” she said. “It wasn’t this hard during Covid. Everyone now expects not to pay full price.”

The 51-year-old former tech entrepreneur, who sold her consulting firm GB Synergy for millions at 33, also wants to expand A Line Experiences, whose trips include African horseback safaris and Paris Fashion Week excursions.

“I am a woman who has range,” she said. For a long time I felt like I needed to be in a box, be a working woman but be in a man’s world… You have to be able to go to the dark night of the soul.”

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“At that location we got capped out, so we’re not renewing our lease and walking away from the space,” said Yoon Terry, who opened the restaurant at 215 E. Seventh Ave. in 2022 with Barbed Wire Reef founder Rico Aragon.

Its last day will be Aug. 10, even though its lease goes through April.

“With the opportunity to open Edgewater, the brand is still staying strong,” continued Terry, who is also the chief operating officer for all the concepts under Aragon’s restaurant group.

Wild Taco’s offerings include cheeseburger and chicken-and-waffles versions of the Mexican classic. But in the Governor’s Park section of Cap Hill, its sales fell around 30% after Seventh Avenue opened back up to cars in 2023, Terry said. The one-block stretch in front of Wild Taco was pedestrian-only for several years after the pandemic.

“We took that over purposefully because of the small-size capacity. I didn’t know how the brand was going to do, and we still wanted to have it manageable,” Terry said of the 1,200-square-foot unit, which had been home to Tacos Tequila Whiskey beforehand.

Terry said sales exceeded expectations by around $500,000 for the first two years, largely because of a tented patio on the street. But the street reopening cut Wild Taco’s outdoor seating in half.

Wild Taco will open in Edgewater Public Market in early September, Terry said. It will replace Carnivore Exotic Taqueria, another concept by Aragon that Terry referred to as the “masculine” version of Wild Taco. Barbed Wire Reef and treat-focused coffee shop Saints or Sinners, which Aragon also owns, will remain in the building too.

The plan is to add more higher ticket dishes such as enchiladas to the menu, to supplement lost revenue from the location not having a bar, she said. In Cap Hill, 60% of revenue came from food and 40% from alcohol.

Wild Taco also has a 3,000-square-foot spot at 4499 W. 38th Ave. off Tennyson Street, the former Barbed Wire Reef space, which will stay open. The group also operates five food trucks.

“The Berkeley location is doing really well,” Terry said. “It just has more size and capacity.”

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The grocery chain’s last day at 5050 E. Arapahoe Road will be Aug. 16, according to a company spokeswoman, adding employees are being given the opportunity to transfer to other stores.

The move is a part of a larger plan by its Cincinnati-based parent company Kroger. Last month, the company said it would close 60 stores over the next 18 months.

There’s another King Soopers 1.25 miles north of the one that will close.

No other Colorado closures have been announced.

In Denver, a King Soopers is under construction at 4201 E. Arkansas Ave. It will replace the existing store at 825 S. Colorado Blvd.

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“It’s been a long time coming,” said the co-owner of Frank & Roze.

The former Starbucks executive opened the coffee shop’s first location at Ninth Avenue and Colorado Boulevard in 2019 and never intended for it to be a one-off. Earlier this year, she finally signed a 10-year lease for a second location in Uptown, aiming to open by the holidays.

Frank & Roze will fill 4,100 square feet at the corner of Pennsylvania Street and 19th Avenue that was formerly home to D-Bar, a dessert cafe that closed nearly a year ago. The space is on the ground floor of the One City Block apartment building.

“The community in that neighborhood is fantastic. (People) live and work there all within two to three blocks,” she said. “It’s 100% about providing a place where they feel welcome, and the community there is the reason we chose it.”

The restaurant will use its bigger kitchen to expand the shop’s menu of breakfast sandwiches, baked goods, sandwiches and salads.

Local chef Tom Coohill, the owner of downtown French spot Coohills, is the man behind the menu. He has worked with Godfrey since Frank & Roze’s opening, serving frittatas and specialty toast alongside the shop’s brews at the original 2,500-square-foot shop.

Frank & Roze currently serves wine and beer at that location, but Godfrey wants a full liquor license to go with Uptown’s 18-seat bar.

“We’ll have a proper brunch full of Eggs Benedicts and Bloody Marys and all the mimosas you can imagine,” she said.

The space will likely be open a little later than the 5:30 p.m. close the first location has. Godfrey wants to get a happy hour crowd in there through the early evening while still having time to hold private events like the work parties and anniversaries that she has at the other spot.

She said the design of the new location will lean toward higher-end “vibey” fabrics rather than the mid-century modern aesthetic the original place is known for. Plants will still be prominently featured, she said.

“You need to be able to sit at the bar and be comfortable working on a laptop in the morning and also having a Manhattan and chatting with friends in the afternoon,” she said of the space.

At Starbucks, Godfrey was in a divisional management role on the development and real estate teams. With Frank & Roze, she aimed to build a café that was scalable. But opening four months before the pandemic hit affected her ability to grow, she said. Dealing with a three-month shutdown, inflationary pressures and a rising Denver minimum wage, Godfrey wanted to make sure the first spot was air tight before opening a second.

Some of those changes included trimming the menu and finding more efficient software systems and staffing setups. She said the business saw double-digit revenue growth in each of its first five years.

“We were very, very selective in moving forward. We looked at a lot of real estate, talked to a lot of developers,” she said. “We looked at a number of opportunities within the Uptown area. We looked in the Highlands, LoHi, Golden Triangle too, the usual suspects.”

Godfrey said this isn’t the last expansion for Frank & Roze. But for now, she said 98% of her attention is on keeping the current location well oiled and setting up the Uptown spot for success.

“The second location is almost more important than the first, in the sense that can you actually demonstrate that you can replicate your concept and the business model has legs?” she said. “You want to make sure your model is sound, you have real estate fundamentals and you understand who your customers are and how they want to enjoy your hospitality.”

This story was originally published by BusinessDen.

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Three’s company for Mendocino Farms.

The Southern California-based sandwich chain is set to open its third Denver location after a successful debut in Cherry Creek and a planned encore in the Highlands.

Mendocino’s next spot will be at 1380 16th St., according to a brochure marketing the property. It will take up 1,900 square feet that was previously part of Panera Bread, which closed last fall.

Mendocino Farms told BusinessDen the location will open in 2026.

The store will sit at the base of the 10-story 16M building, which features office space on floors two through six and apartments on the four floors above that.

Mendocino’s first Denver location opened in May at 320 Fillmore St. in Cherry Creek. A turkey club sandwich costs $14 and a steak sandwich $16. That spot is open daily from 10:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. and also serves beer and wine.

Founded in 2005 by husband-and-wife duo Mario Del Pero and Ellen Chen, Mendocino Farms is largely concentrated in California, with dozens of locations from Sacramento to San Diego. It recently began expanding to Texas, Washington, Illinois and locally.

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The owner of Little Kickers in Denver’s Virginia Village neighborhood recently bumped up pay for instructors to improve retention.

“It’s a high, high turnover industry overall. A lot of people do it as their high school job. Nobody really dreams of being a swim instructor as their career,” said Roush, who is the founder and owner.

Roush said she expects to have revenue of $5 million this year.

“People just haven’t been able to use it as something that will financially support them,” she continued. “Denver, especially, it’s very expensive here, so a lot of our instructors have two or three other jobs and sometimes this isn’t a priority for them.”

The recent change takes starting pay for coaches from $22 to $25 an hour. But the more noticeable jump is on the high end — pay is now capped at $50 an hour, up from $32.

Roush said the average instructor is now earning $35 an hour, a $10 increase from a month ago.

Little Kickers, which Roush opened with her sister in 2014, has 1,750 weekly students ranging in age from 5 months to 12 years. Most fall between ages 2 and 6. Roush said she thinks the increased staffing consistency will allow her to get the weekly student number to 2,000.

The school in 5,700 square feet at 1423 S. Holly St. charges $59 an hour for 30-minute private lessons. The $5 million in revenue projected this year is a slight increase over last year, when the business brought in $4.8 million.

As part of the pay increase, she requires her staff to commit to a schedule for a full year. She said in the 60 days since she started rolling out the changes, call outs and sick days have dropped 75%.

“Growth within Little Kickers for the past as long as I can remember has been, ‘How do I get out of the water? What can I do to get a shift out of the water?’” she said. “Because usually that means more money.

“My belief is that people who are the most excellent instructors should be making more than some of the people out of the water.”

The move is already enticing former coaches to jump back into Little Kickers’ pool.

Last Tuesday, Barry Friedman was in the midst of his first week back on the job. He started teaching for Roush in 2016, but returned home to South Dakota in October.

“The reason I left is because Denver is expensive. I was working two jobs and sometimes like 16-hour days,” he said. “It just got really exhausting.”

But when Roush called about the pay hike, Friedman opted to return.

“Some people look at swim instructing as a really easy job, but really it’s physically demanding,” he said. “It can be mentally and emotionally demanding. It’s a lot of work having kids climb on you all day, being in chlorine for 30 to 40 hours a week.”

Roush started teaching swimming lessons in high school at what used to be the Cherry Creek Athletic Club. She and her sister started Little Kickers in an office building’s pool, then moved to a since-shuttered Holiday Inn in Cherry Creek.

Seven years ago, the pair signed a 10-year lease for the current Virginia Village space. After getting the permanent spot up and running, Roush and her husband, Mark, who owned Great Play Cherry Creek before closing during the pandemic, opened the Kickin’ It Kids Gym next door to Little Kickers. That business is on track to do around $1 million this year.

One of the main reasons for the pay bump is that Yael Roush bought out her sister’s stake in the business earlier this year.

“We’ve created two phenomenal businesses over the past 10 years, and I think just over the past two years, our visions really started to grow apart,” she said. “We had very different ideas of what we wanted this to look like. … It’s been 90 days of me having the ability to not have to run an idea like a crazy compensation plan by somebody else.”

Cutting eight management positions earlier this year is one of the ways she is offsetting the costs. Another will be having more full-timers, which she hopes will bring down the employee count to 50. She also plans to increase the lesson price by $9, to $68.

Yael Roush said Little Kickers’ clients mostly come from Cherry Creek, Wash Park and Virginia Village. She expects them to benefit from coaching consistency.

“We were in a place where we were so nervous to fill our schedule because we didn’t know if we could rely on those coaches. And so we wouldn’t want to put a new family into a schedule because we didn’t know if that coach was leaving,” she said. “But with this, we can trust our coaches. We know they’re going to be there. We know they’re going to show up.”

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The business, which opened its first boulder gym in 2009, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in early July in a bid to keep two locations in Englewood and Denver’s Valverde neighborhood open.

The third location, in Thornton, closed days before, at the end of last month. In an Instagram post, the company cited only “unforeseen circumstances.” But in court documents, the company said the spot was dragging it down.

“(DBC) was forced to file bankruptcy due to an underperforming location, unfavorable lease, and a dip in memberships, which created cash flow issues,” the company said in one filing.

The company did not respond to requests for comment from BusinessDen.

The lease in Thornton has five years remaining, documents show, while leases for the still-operating gyms each have a year remaining.

The company has asked a judge to let it exit the Thornton lease, saying the location “is losing money and is burdensome.” A judge has yet to rule.

Thomas Betterton owns 64% of Denver Bouldering Club, per court filings. The remainder of the company is owned by Ben Bryant, Matt Bucaric and John Gass.

Court documents show DBC had revenue of about $1.3 million in both 2023 and 2024. As of July 3, it had revenue of $288,000 in 2025, and forecast total sales of $833,000 for the full year.

The gym reported $89,000 in assets and $526,000 in liabilities. Filings show its biggest creditor, the U.S. Small Business Administration, is owed $492,000.

Costs also include $40,000 in payroll monthly for 10 hourly and six salary employees, filings state. The gym successfully petitioned the court to keep paying its staff while it goes through the Chapter 11 process.

“While (DBC’s) business model has the potential to be profitable, (it) could not maintain its prepetition obligations,” the company said in one filing. “Faced with mounting debt and limited liquidity, (DBC) had no viable option but to seek bankruptcy protection.”

DBC memberships cost $72 a month for use during business hours, according to the company’s website, which also shows other options including 24/7 access for just $10 more. Its website also shows several other options, including 24/7 access for $82 a month and more flexible packages.

When the gym signed its Thornton lease in 2019, Betterton told BusinessDen that bouldering, in which participants climb up 15-foot walls with no harnesses or ropes, was a fast-growing part of the climbing industry. He also said buildout for the Thornton spot would cost DBC between $500,000 and $1 million.

“With how outdoorsy the Front Range is, climbing is underserved,” Betterton said at the time.

Attorney David J. Warner of Wadsworth Garber Warner Conrardy is representing the company in bankruptcy proceedings.

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Adrian Grace is moving in, that’s what.

Next month, the restaurateur who has operated a food truck since 2019 will bring What’s Happening Restaurant and Bar to Five Points. She’s taking the building formerly occupied by beer and charcuterie spot Goed Zuur, which closed in 2023 after a six-year run.

The chef will serve soul food in the 2,500-square-foot space, opening for lunch and dinner with occasional brunches. The core of the menu will be nearly identical to her food truck, with things like wings and a pulled pork grilled cheese.

But the bigger kitchen allows her to experiment with bites like a western burger, a patty topped with honey bourbon, crispy onions and barbecue sauce.

Grace also touted signature cocktails like “Trash Can in an Uber,” a mix of rum, tequila, gin and vodka blended with several fruity flavors. What’s Happening will also feature beers from local breweries like WestFax and Landlocked Ales.

“I would say we’re soul food meets American food,” she added.

What’s Happening will be on the same block as Welton Street Cafe, a longtime soul food joint that reopened at 2883 Welton last year.

Grace got her start as a server for IHOP, eventually moving up to management and taking jobs with national chains like Del Taco and Chiles. But a case of pneumonia and an ensuing heart attack led her to reevaluate.

During her recovery, the idea for What’s Happening Catering was born. In 2019, she hit the festival, event and wedding circuits.

Though the truck will go on a hiatus once the restaurant opens, she said it could come back in the future once her and her staff are able to get in a good groove on Welton Street.

“I love what I do. There is not a moment that I’m not always thinking about it,” Grace said. “I dream food.”

She said the name comes from her sister, and a lot of the decor, activities and hospitality mentality comes from her family. Grace grew up in Los Angeles with a big one — her grandmother had a whopping 22 brothers and sisters.

“My sister, she is always answering the phone like ‘What’s happening?’ It was catchy for me,” she said of her restaurant’s namesake.

“When I first came out with What’s Happening, everybody was like ‘Is it from the show?’ And yeah, that too, absolutely,” she said, reminiscing on viewing with her loved ones. “I grew up on those shows: What’s happening!!, Good Times, The Jeffersons.”

The space itself is an homage to that upbringing.

One wall is clad with posters of Denzel Washington, Janet Jackson and movies and shows. Another features quotes from the likes of Malcolm X and Barack Obama. A third has a photo of Kobe Bryant and Allen Iverson alongside a banner marking the Denver Nugget’s 2023 NBA Championship.

“I’m a caterer, and we decorate and we do things,” she explained. “That’s why this is such a dream for me. Because nobody can really stop all my ideas.”

But issues getting the place open nearly did.

Grace signed a five-year lease a year ago and has been paying about $9,000 in rent each month. First she had issues working with Denver’s permitting staff on getting a new hood, and she had to put in a grease trap. Those two alone cost around $85,000.

“It’s been hard. It’s been frustrating,” Grace said. “Thank God for my husband… He’s heard a lot of cuss words from me.”

But with opening just over a month away, she said it’s an “honor and a privilege” to be in the area. She wants to help usher in a new energy for Welton Street and spur continued revitalization.

“I think that Welton Street needs to turn that corner and change a lot of the way that it looks,” she said, suggesting more flowers, trees and statues honoring jazz musicians as things to add. “I think that definitely we can create a vibe here to where this street starts to move in the right direction.”

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It first opened at the mall 25 years ago, when the national chain made its debut in the Centennial State. CPK got its start with a Beverly Hills, California, location in 1985.

Its corporate headquarters did not respond to a request for comment from BusinessDen.

Mike Wilson, the mall’s general manager, told BusinessDen on Tuesday that a new business has already been secured for the space, but declined to answer specific questions.

CPK’s Colorado presence has been dwindling in recent years.

After CPK filed for bankruptcy in 2020, The Daily Camera reported that spots in Boulder and Colorado Springs had closed. The outlet also said the future of a now-shuttered Broomfield restaurant was also up in the air. It is unclear when that restaurant closed.

California Pizza Kitchen now has just one remaining Colorado location, at Park Meadows mall in Lone Tree, according to the company’s website.

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The Denver-based homebuilder plans to incorporate the 18-hole course into Prairie Point, a 1,700-home community it is developing on 900 acres by the South Parker Road/E-470 interchange.

Documents submitted to Aurora show that the course will have a clubhouse, maintenance building and a restaurant between holes nine and ten. The website for Prairie Point also says the course will feature a training academy, driving range and short game practice area.

“The length of this par-72 course will range from the new-golfer friendly 5,180 yards to a demanding 7,705 yards, enticing to all players featuring five sets of tees and perfectly positioned greenside bunkers with challenging greens of varying sizes,” the website states.

Dan Blankenship has built several courses around Brazil, according to his firm Gold Tee Golf International. Sand-based links courses are common in England, Scotland and Ireland and built on sandy soil.

Oakwood, founded by Pat Hamill in 1991, previously built the 18-hole Green Valley Ranch Golf Club and surrounding homes. Hamill, who did not respond to a request for comment, stepped down last year but still advises the firm. He was elected to the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame in November.

It is unclear when construction will start for the course, but crews appear to be laying the groundwork for a residential section on the western side of the site.

On its website, Oakwood said it will begin selling homes next year and building them out in 2027. Residences will start in the $600,000s.

Three years ago, Oakwood reached a settlement with Aurora related to water use for the course. Weeks later, the city council approved an ordinance prohibiting additional golf courses within city limits.

“Our aim is always to design and build one of the most conservation-friendly courses ever,” Hamill told BusinessDen in 2022.

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