Colorado Real Estate Journal - November 18, 2015
Thirsty Lion Gastropub & Grill, by far the largest restaurant at Union Station, is expanding its Denver presence by opening its second Denver restaurant in Cherry Creek North next year. Thirsty Lion opened its 8,500-square-foot restaurant at 1605 Wynkoop St. in 2014. It plans to open a 7,000-sf restaurant at 201 Columbine St. in May. “With all of the redevelopment, both commercial and residential, in Cherry Creek, I think it’s safe to say that Thirsty Lion is moving into this exciting neighborhood at just the right time,” said Thirsty Lion CEO John Plew. “We’ve experienced enormous success with our first Denver location in Union Station, which has also undergone incredible redevelopment, and we think Cherry Creek offers similar opportunities for success,” Plew said. “I don’t want to share it with you, but it is a big number,” as far the volume at the Union Station restaurant, which dwarfs other, nearby restaurants in size at Union Station, he said. He opened the first Thirsty Lion in his hometown of Portland in 2006 and refined the concept over the next few years. Initially, the Thirsty Lion was launched as a traditional English pub, but after Plew found that had a limited audience, he expanded the menu, which has a much wider fare, in 2010. Thirsty Lion also will start serving breakfast at Union Station on weekends and in the Cherry Creek operation. When he first came to Denver, there really were no restaurants in Union Station serving lunch, which is a big part of the Thirsty Lion’s business, he said. “East West Partners (his landlord at Union Station) has just been wonderful to work with,” Plew said. “I’m sure Chris Frampton (at East West Partners) and his team could have leased that space to a billion-dollar national chain, but they liked our design and what we offered,” Plew said. Kelly Greene, president of Urban Legend at Legend Partners, represented Plew in both Denver restaurants. Union Station has met his initial pro forma projections, Plew said. “Our master plan was to expand to additional locations if the first one worked out, and Cherry Creek was one of the sites on our map,” Plew said. “We had been scouting around the area to find the kind of footprint we need, which is pretty hard in Cherry Creek,” he said. There is an abundance of parking to serve the restaurant, he said. “We have 250 parking spaces below the building and there are 800 spaces across the street,” Plew said. The area is only getting better, with all of the nearby development planned or underway, he said. “I think one of the big factors that really helped our comfort level is the Sage (Hospitality) hotel that is going to be built behind us and all of the new condos being built on Columbine,” by Western Development Group, Plew said. While Plew was negotiating the lease at 201 Columbine, the building was purchased by Seattle-based Unico Properties. While a change in ownership can sometimes complicate a pending lease agreement, in this case it probably worked in his favor. “What is interesting, and coincidentally, while Unico is based in Seattle, one their biggest assets is the U.S. Bank Tower in Portland, which is blocks from our Thirsty Lion in downtown Portland,” Plew said. “So Unico is very familiar with the kind of restaurant we are, so it worked out well for us,” Plew said. He doesn't open cookie-cutter stores. “Each is aesthetically different,” Plew said. “The architectural details on the interior design are different and while the menus are typically the same, we might have a bit of a different line-up based on our demographics,” Plew said. “For example, we might have more wine drinkers in Cherry Creek than in downtown, where a lot of people order beer with meals, so we might have more wine choices in Cherry Creek,” Plew said. He said the Thirsty Lions are not “farm-to-table” restaurants, although they do try to source as much local produce as possible. And they are not gourmet burger joints, either. “We have amazing burgers and everything is made fresh, nothing is frozen, except our ice cream,” Plew said. “The problem with these gourmet hamburger places that is that you have to be in the mood only to have a hamburger,” Plew said. “Let’s say you and I were going to lunch with some guys from the office and you said I had a hamburger last night, so I think I need a salad, another guy said he was in a mood for scallops and I really wanted a pizza. We have this eclectic mix of food that can satisfy everybody.” Also, the Thirsty Lion has a wide range of appetizers. “We find that millennials, especially, are really big on sharing, so a lot of young people will just order a lot of appetizers and everyone will share them,” he said. If the Cherry Creek store does as well as he expects, he plans to expand in the Denver area. “I would love to be down south, somewhere around the tech center or Park Meadows, and also up north,” Plew said. “I probably wouldn’t want to be as far north as Broomfield, but we would be very interested in Westminster in the area they are redeveloping the old mall site,” he said. He said infill sites in trendy Denver neighborhoods probably couldn’t provide the size and parking that a Thirsty Lion requires. “I am not that familiar with all of the Denver neighborhoods to be able to speak specifically about them, but given that our typical store is about 8,500 square feet, it might be difficult for us to find an infill site that makes sense for us,” Plew said. Other News An unidentified buyer paid $2.64 million, or $694 per square foot, for a 3,798-sf Kneaders Bakery and Café building at Center Drive and Highland Ranch Parkway in Highlands Ranch. Kneaders Bakery and Café has a 15-year lease at the site. The building includes a 1,000-sf patio. Tom Ethington and Rob Edwards, senior advisers at Pinnacle Real Estate Advisors LLC, represented the seller in the transaction. “Kneaders Bakery is a new food brand that is here to stay,” Ethington said. “We are continuing to see demand for well-located single-tenant assets to help diversify investors’ portfolios,” Ethington continued. “This high-quality location should appreciate nicely over the long term while providing a good hedge against inflation for the new owner,” he said. Arenem Restaurant Holdings Inc. paid $750,000 to Yasuko Aoki 2002 Trust for a 10,071-sf building at 15500 Centretech Parkway in Aurora. Frank Griffinof Newmark Grubb Knight Frank was the cooperating broker in the transaction. Diamond Nails Too leased 1,604 sf at 3877 Evergreen Parkway in Evergreen from A Mogul Property LLC. The listing broker in the transaction was Rebecca B. Martin from RBM Real Estate Solutions.