South Broadway tries to hold on to its funky vibe as beloved small businesses leave

When Adrienne Scott-Trask opened Electric Dream Boutique in January 2023 in Denver, she hoped she’d found her clothing store’s “forever home” on Broadway at First Avenue. But the reality of running a small business along the storied street has overwhelmed that vision.

Scott-Trask has cleaned up vomit and graffiti on her windows and blood splattered on the front door of her shop. A vandal shattered her door’s glass panel in March. She said she was also struggling with the cost of rent and extra expenses tacked on by her landlords as they contend with rising property taxes.

With over three years left on her five-year lease, she’s debating whether to move — or leave the state entirely.

“We can’t afford to be here anymore, and we’ve only been here a year and a half,” Scott-Trask said. “It’s making it feel impossible to exist here as a small business — and I mean the entire city, not just Broadway.”

Several quirky, independent stores like Scott-Trask’s are fighting to stay afloat on the iconic Denver corridor, while others succumb to business pressures that have closed their doors for good or pushed them elsewhere. As more investor-backed projects and chains move into the neighborhood, Broadway’s future is looking less avant-garde than its past.

The street has lost a string of legacy establishments — most recently, Mutiny Information Cafe, a bookstore and community space that closed at 2 S. Broadway and was set Friday to reopen farther south on Broadway in Englewood; and Sol Tribe Custom Tattoo & Piercing, a tragedy-marred shop at 56 Broadway that shuttered permanently in July.

But empty storefronts aren’t the whole picture. Broadway has welcomed new additions, including Brooklyn’s Finest Pizza, Rhapsody Karaoke & Chicken Wings, Beet & Yarrow Florist, MAKfam restaurant and La Forêt restaurant. Several blocks south of Electric Dream Boutique, BurnDown, a multi-story restaurant, bar and live music venue, is drawing crowds.

“It’s time for whatever ‘new Denver’ wants,” said Mutiny co-owner Jim Norris, who previously served as a partner in the now-defunct 3 Kings Tavern nearby. “Just because Mutiny is not here doesn’t mean the neighborhood’s gonna die — it just means that it’s going to change.”

The corridor has long been recognized as its own destination within the city, largely because of the funky businesses that call it home. The street is dotted with restaurants, dive bars, breweries, thrift stores and music venues that give Broadway its distinct free-spirited, gritty vibe.

In Mutiny’s case, Norris said, worries about security and higher rent ultimately forced the shop to pack up and relocate.

Other Broadway business owners say they are weathering safety concerns, costly commercial leases, the lingering financial strain from the COVID-19 pandemic and, more recently, the construction and parking impacts from a major extension of the corridor’s two-way protected bike lane.

Still, several of the many remaining entrepreneurs are adamant that the city isn’t witnessing an exodus from Broadway. They say Denverites shouldn’t give up hope on a corridor that’s determined to swim, not sink.

“All of the talk about how South Broadway is moving to Englewood is also really harmful and very frustrating for those of us that are staying,” said Rose Kalasz, the owner of Awakening Boutique, 38 Broadway. “We’re not going to leave.”

One of the new faces of business on South Broadway is Alex Vickers, who opened BurnDown near Virginia Avenue with co-owner Reed Sparks in May 2023.

“We were hoping that, with this spot, we kind of compete with other neighborhoods, right? So South Broadway is suddenly in league with, say, Highlands or RiNo,” said Vickers, 35.

He’s watching business improve year over year, he said. He hopes his restaurant, at 476 S. Broadway, becomes a staple along the corridor, helping attract other businesses to his block — which is quieter than those north of Alameda Avenue.

Safer and “more gentrified” than in past

The area known informally as “South Broadway” consists of the blocks south of Ellsworth Avenue — Denver’s north-south dividing line for addresses — along with a few blocks to the north that include the Mayan Theatre. The Baker neighborhood is where much of the action on Broadway takes place.

Mark Tabor, the president of the Baker Historic Neighborhood Association, bought his first house there in 1987. He remembers Broadway as a haven, even decades ago, for an eclectic mix of people, including the LBGTQ+ community.

“It was sketchy back then, but it was really a fun neighborhood,” Tabor said. “It had a very active commercial district, even back then.”

After spending time away, he returned to Baker a decade ago.

“It’s like night and day,” Tabor said of the change he observed. “It’s so much safer — and, unfortunately, more gentrified, too.”

A few of the shuttered businesses reminiscent of “old Denver” included Fancy Tiger Crafts Co-op, which was pushed to Englewood by high rent, and Hope Tank — a former Broadway gift shop strangled by the pandemic that later reopened as an event space on East 22nd Avenue in City Park West.

Barry’s on Broadway, a bar slinging drinks for two decades, closed last year after lease negotiations fell through. The location at 58 Broadway was filled by another watering hole, the Saint Mary Bar.

Three landlords running commercial properties along Broadway didn’t respond to requests for interviews about finding and retaining tenants, along with other challenges.

Remaining business owners are still trying to shake off the last dregs of financial strain caused by the pandemic and Denver’s bike lane construction. The controversial $14 million city project, which kicked off in October 2022, resulted in a 1.5-mile protected bikeway on Broadway when it wrapped up in February.

Adam Hodak, the owner of the L bar, signed his lease at 46 Broadway in 2019 before opening in 2021. He’s resided in the Baker neighborhood for 16 years.

Hodak turned a former pet store into a bar — one of the notable conversions along the corridor. A Big Lots location at 65 Broadway was transformed more than a decade ago into Punch Bowl Social, itself seen as a buzzy entertainment and bar space when it opened. More recently, Compound Basix, a gay bar at 145 N. Broadway, closed and was replaced in 2019 by Postino wine bar, now one of the multistate chain’s five Denver locations.

Businesses like Dave’s Hot Chicken and Boulder Barbers have opted to occupy the ground floor spaces of newer apartment buildings developed in recent years.

When Hodak’s bar opened, “Broadway, at that time, was booming.”

“It was sort of my dream to open my bar on South Broadway,” he said.

But during the pandemic, the corridor’s foot traffic plummeted, with not much room for outdoor dining along the busy thoroughfare. “Coming out of COVID, we lost a lot of restaurants,” Hodak said.

And since then, he’s watched the rapid turnover of businesses at several locations along Broadway. Hodak points to the pandemic as the corridor’s No. 1 hurdle, but bike lane construction ranked as No. 2, he said.

Angel Macauley, the owner of Femme Fatale Intimates, took a break from researching small business loans to speak with The Denver Post. Her lingerie store, at 26 N. Broadway, opened in 2019.

Like Hodak, she criticized the bike lane construction and its impact on parking. When construction was underway, she had to take on a second job to make ends meet, she said.

As a business owner, “it’s been great up until this last year,” Macauley said. “There’s no more parking now that they put these (expletive) bike lanes in.”

What’s worse: Crime or its stigma?

Concern about crime varied among entrepreneurs on South Broadway. Several worried about its impact on their businesses. But others were nervous that an exaggerated stigma tied to the risks on Broadway could drive customers away.

Kalasz, at Awakening Boutique, has handled broken windows and theft, but she said crime didn’t feel more troublesome along the corridor.

“In any neighborhood in any city, I think that we would have the same problems,” she added.

However, the incidents at Electric Dream Boutique not only left Scott-Trask feeling violated, she said, but also “really alone.”

“There is no one there to help you with it. The city doesn’t help,” she said.

Over the past four years, crime has fluctuated along a four-mile stretch of Broadway from Colfax Avenue to Evans Avenue, according to the Denver Police Department. So far this year, the data show fewer incidents reported along the corridor compared to recent years.

From January through August, police recorded 765 reports of criminal offenses, including 119 incidents of larceny, 93 drug offenses and 80 reports of simple assault.

For the same time period in 2023, police received a total of 846 reports along that part of Broadway, and reports totaled 796 in 2022 and 864 in 2021.

Scott-Trask said she wished Denver offered grants to help business owners repair damage like graffiti — fixes that stretch her budget thin.

“That all comes out of my pocket at the end of the day,” she said.

After more than a decade on Broadway, Mutiny’s Norris was also left upset about the lack of support from the city, which he said was investing “everywhere else but here.”

For him, the problems stacked up: broken windows, safety concerns, visible drug use in the area and an inability to pay a higher rent.

But he ended on a positive note about the community: “The neighborhood is great, and there are great people still down here doing great things,” Norris said.

“I believe in the street”

For Luke Johnson, who owns Luke & Company Fine Pet Supply & Outfitter, the solution to many of the corridor’s hurdles lies in the establishment of a business improvement district. It would fill the corridor-investment gap that some local entrepreneurs lamented. As the president of the Broadway Merchants Association, he’s helping create it.

Johnson said a BID would rely on business owners putting their tax dollars toward objectives such as 24-hour security, landscaping, benches and local events, including the Broadway Halloween Parade. This year, parade organizers had to fundraise to pay for pedestrian barricades that were newly required by the city.

If all goes to plan, the BID should take effect in January 2026, Johnson said. For now, his association can’t collect money to accomplish those long-term goals, but it does represent the voices of Broadway’s mom-and-pop shops.