New restaurant openings are increasingly the exception, not the norm.

The big picture: The food industry in Denver and across Colorado has been battered over the past five years — and it's adding up.

• Rising costs of food, rent and property taxes combined with shrinking profit margins, growing regulatory pressures and budget-conscious diners are all pushing restaurants to the brink, industry experts say.

What they're saying: "It's death by a thousand cuts," Colorado Restaurant Association spokesperson Denise Mickelsen tells us.

By the numbers: More than 200 restaurants closed statewide in 2024, per the Colorado Sun. Denver alone accounted for 82% of those losses, according to the CRA.

• In the past three years, the city has lost 22% of its restaurants, the Denver Post reports. Some of the most recent closures include longstanding institutions like Fruition, Lao Wang Noodle House and Melita's.

Zoom in: One major pain point is Denver's increased tipped minimum wage.

• The wage hike on Jan. 1 added an average $82,412 in costs per restaurant, according to a new CRA survey first shared with Axios Denver.

State of play: The CRA is bracing for what it predicts to be a brutal legislative session, with proposed bills on the horizon that could:

• Make it easier for unions to organize by removing a requirement that calls for a second vote to agree on certain union rules.
• Tackle service, or "junk," fees that diners dislike but many restaurants use to pay back-of-house staff.
• Crack down on wage theft, allowing employees to sue even after back pay is issued.

What to watch: Restaurant leaders are pushing their own legislative agenda targeting credit card swipe fees and tipped minimum wage laws.

The bottom line: "We have to do something to help restaurants right now, or we're just going to keep losing them," Mickelsen warns.

Full story

Colorado's best beers took home medals Friday in the inaugural Colorado Brewers Cup.

Why it matters: The competition is the first to feature only Colorado brewers and instantly qualifies as one of the top competitions in the nation given the level of talent in a state with the 5th-most breweries per capita.

State of play: Westbound & Down, with locations in Idaho Springs, Lafayette and Denver, won six medals, the most of any brewery, and dominated the hoppy beer categories.

• River North Brewery won four medals, while Carver Brewing, Cerebral Brewing, and Seedstock Brewery each collected three medals.
• The award for top breweries of the year went to Carver in Durango and River North in Denver

The intrigue: Amalgam Brewing won the best IPA for Modern West, while Living the Dream scored the best hazy IPA in the most competitive category for Trailhead.

By the numbers: The competition featured 650 entries from 134 breweries, awarding 78 medals. Only members of the Colorado Brewers Guild were eligible.

What they're saying: "This celebrates Colorado craft beer and acknowledges those who are making exceptional, high-quality craft beer," Colorado Brewers Guild executive director Shawnee Adelson said in an interview after the awards ceremony Friday in Aurora.

See the full list of winners

Metro Denver's office vacancy rate is reaching new — and unfortunate — heights.

The big picture: Average office vacancy rates across the region rose 24.4% last year, exceeding the 20.4% average across the county's top metro areas, per Moody.

Why it matters: While Denver saw a bump in people returning to office work last year, a staggering number of offices remain empty.

Zoom in: Denver's central business district's vacancy rate sits at 34.9%, though local real estate brokers suggest the market is beginning to stabilize as leasing increases, per the Colorado Sun.

Yes, but: A few miles from downtown, the Cherry Creek neighborhood is bucking the vacancy trend, securing leasing and tenants for office spaces under construction before they're completed.

What's next

🕊️ Dana Crawford, a pillar in the Denver development community known for the restoration and preservation of Larimer Square, died at age 93. (CPR)

🏈 Denver Broncos assistant general manager Darren Mougey was hired as the New York Jets' new GM on Saturday. (ESPN)

💰 State lawmakers want to give colleges the ability to pay student-athletes as part of an expansion of the state's name, image, likeness (NIL) law. (Denver Post 🔑)

⛔️ A Denver judge ordered the shutdown of William Penn apartments in the Uptown neighborhood for poor conditions. The property is owned by CBZ Management, which also owns the troubled Edge at Lowry Apartments in Aurora. (9News)

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A spacecraft designed and developed in Littleton could help researchers determine whether we can safely return to the moon.

The big picture: The Lunar Trailblazer made its public debut last week inside the Lockheed Martin Space campus in Littleton, where development on the satellite started in 2020.

State of play: The spacecraft will scan the lunar surface by measuring the abundance, distribution and form of water and water molecules, according to Lockheed Martin.

The intrigue: Water on the moon exists primarily in ice form, per NASA.

• The Lunar Trailblazer will pinpoint locations of frozen water create a high-resolution map, which may help find a future landing site for programs like Artemis, NASA's planned lunar mission.

What's next: The spacecraft is scheduled to launch Feb. 26 at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

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So ... are we still calling it the Gulf of Mexico, or is it really the Gulf of America now?

• We're inclined to side with Gov. Jared Polis, who thinks "Gulf of Casa Bonita" could be the best compromise on the renaming debate.