Former Tivoli Brewing space welcomes a new business

The Auraria Campus will welcome Denver-based Recess Beer Garden to its historic Tivoli Student Union next semester, the campus organization announced Monday.

A new restaurant and bar run by Recess will take over the former QuadSide Tavern and Tivoli Brewing space, which closed last year. The student union can trace its roots as one of the birthplaces of Denver beer as the home of the Tivoli-Union Brewery for decades.

Recess Tivoli will open in August, the announcement said.

“The Tivoli has been doing that in its own way for generations, which makes this an incredibly meaningful place for us to call home,” Recess CEO & Managing Partner Jason Romero said in a news release. “We’re excited to welcome the Auraria community and continue that tradition together.”

This will be Recess Beer Garden’s second location, with its original home located in the Lower Highlands neighborhood at 2715 17th St.

Recess Tivoli will include its original smashburgers, sandwiches and appetizers. It will have a full bar and plenty of patio seating designed to accommodate lunches between classes, game days and after-work happy hours.

“We’re thrilled to welcome Recess Tivoli to campus,” said Colleen Walker, CEO of the Auraria Higher Education Center. “The Tivoli Student Union has long served as the heart of our campus, and this new partnership reflects our continued commitment to creating welcoming spaces where students, employees, and visitors can gather, connect and build community.”

Hopscotch Beer Garden opens at Denargo Market

One of the largest infill developments in Denver is ready to show off its new beer garden.

Denargo Market, the massive new project to transform 17 acres of land into a riverfront district with 3 million square feet for housing, offices, a hotel and retail in the River North Arts District, announced Hopscotch Beer Garden is open to the public.

It opened on July 11.

The 17,000-square-foot Hopscotch Beer Garden is being operated by local events company DrinkDenver.

The outdoor hangout built with shipping containers includes a bar and patio. It has a reinforced heated tent for colder months and a turf field for lawn games and dogs on leash. It offers 16 alcoholic drinks on tap, including national and Colorado beers, ciders and wines. It features non-alcoholic options such as nitro cold brew, kombucha and mocktails and light eats ranging from Denver Chip Co., Kettle Head Popcorn and Gnarly Mountain Cookies.

The beer garden will also have a rotating schedule of local food trucks.

“We’ve long felt that Hopscotch will be the first catalyst at Denargo Market,” said Alison Nestel-Patt, director of development and user experience at Formativ, in a press release. “It is exciting to see that take shape today with the opening of the beer garden — establishing the neighborhood as a sought-after destination for Denverites to live, work and play.”

The development area was once home to Denver’s largest food market in the 20th century, hosting more than 500 stands, according to Denargo Market’s website. In 1971, a fire destroyed it and the site became mostly empty or used for industrial purposes.

Denargo Market is led by a joint venture between Formativ and Chicago-based Golub & Co. and is set to be built out over the next decade with plans to create about 1,000 units of housing.

New restaurant in LoHi aims to mix Chinese cuisine with French culinary techniques

A new Chinese restaurant opened in LoHi this week.

Denver restaurateur Sherry Crossland debuted Blossom by SYC at 1691 Central St. The restaurant focuses on elevated Chinese food using French culinary techniques, an announcement from her company One Concept Restaurant Group and SYC Concepts said.

Crossland is the founder of several restaurants around Colorado, including Go Fish Sushi, Miya Moon, Chubby Fish Sushi, The Bronze Empire and Sushi by SYC.

“Blossom by SYC is my way of sharing the food, traditions and memories I grew up with while presenting them through a modern perspective,” Crossland said in a news release. “Chinese cuisine is one of the world’s greatest culinary traditions, yet there is still so much for people to discover.”

The menu is curated by Crossland and Executive Chef Adam Chan who worked at a two-Michelin-star restaurant in Hong Kong called TATE Dining Room and Ever by Chef Curtis Duffy in Chicago.

The restaurant will feature a Peking duck program and dishes such as artisanal pork soup dumplings, black truffle pork shaomai, Hokkaido scallop carpaccio, amber lychee shrimp balls and crispy Sichuan chili chicken.

The restaurant can seat 130 guests and is open from Sunday to Thursday from 4 to 10 p.m. and closes at 11 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.

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