BY MELANIE ULLE
Remember when the biggest threat to Denver was a sudden, window-smashing hailstorm that would dent your car and ruin your garden in ten minutes flat, or the neighborhood pervert by the Wash Park tennis courts? I do. Today, another threat is looming. We are watching the places that make Denver a city worth living in and visiting shutter their doors at a rate that should make us all inconsolable for a good hour or two. Or three.
Right now, Denver’s dining scene is under unbearable pressure. Talk to any restauranteur and they will tell you there’s a reason your favorite burger now costs $19.29. Okay, many reasons. There is a perfect storm of crippling conditions that are hurting the industry. Since 2019, labor expenses have jumped 50% to 55%. The tipped minimum wage in Denver has spiked by 95.4% in that same window, rising from $8.09 to $16.27. Average restaurants are paying $162,000 a year in credit card swipe fees alone.
The casualty list will hurt your heart if you take the time to reflect on it. We’ve lost the Hornet, Noisette, Osaka Ramen and so many others and we all know that when they go, they don’t come back as the same kinds of places. There will never be another Pub on Pearl. There just won’t be.
Meanwhile, it is actual torture to watch my teenage daughters demand sushi while spending every dime of their embarrassingly small allowances on trash clothing that will go to Goodwill within one season. I watch with horror as they get high AF on their new Shein haul, knowing those $7 tops will be in a landfill before school starts again in August. Perhaps that means I should increase their allowance, you say. No, I’m not doing that.
As any mom of tween or teen girls knows, the other endless money pit is Sephora/Ulta. I stand there watching them drop a fortune on serums (come on, you aren’t even 20), and bronzers they found on TikTok. It is a trillion-dollar orgy of stuff. We could be spending that money on momos and keeping a family in business.
I think it’s only natural when we feel economic pressure to cut back on perceived luxuries, starting with meals at our local neighborhood restaurants. I am making the argument right now to do the exact opposite. Cut anything else. Cut Netflix, cut expensive hair products, and definitely cut the fast fashion, but do not stop eating out. We really need these kitchens to survive the dark days so that when things are great again and the sun is shining, we will have the places that make our city special.
Hear me out. What if we decided to stop buying garbage for six months? I did the research and Americans are currently buying 60% more clothing than we did a decade ago and admittedly, I have participated in this and consider myself guilty and complicit. I blame all the Insta ads. But I am committing right now to taking a big timeout.
We are literally dumping 2,150 pieces of clothing into the earth every single second. I feel sick just writing that. When you spend $100 at a local Denver restaurant, approximately $68 stays in our community. When you spend that $100 on online fast-fashion, virtually zero dollars recirculate here. It’s just gone.
You don’t need another shitty pair of leggings. You need crab rangoons and Thai Tea. You need meatballs and garlic bread and large icy Cokes. You need saag paneer and butter chicken. Starting now please consider committing to six months of wearing what you have and eating where you live. A city without a thriving restaurant scene is a city in decline. I am not going to name names, but you’ve been to those cities and there’s a reason you don’t live in them. They make you sad. They make all of us sad and I sincerely believe that we can fight this trend.
In the meantime, check out the Colorado Restaurant Association’s site for more information about what an important part of our economy this industry is to our fine state: www.corestaurant.org.
Lastly, to those who are fighting on behalf of the industry, THANK YOU! Mary Nguyen, Adam Schlegel, Brandy Schultz and so many others, thank you for advocating for the places that make us love this city we call home.