Denver patios spill onto sidewalks, streets for summer dining outdoors

Some restaurant owners get creative while others wait to get in on the action

On main streets from Littleton to Louisville and Golden to Arvada, city blocks are closing to thru-traffic.

Tables are set, candles are lit and restaurant owners are closely watching the weather, praying that Colorado’s summer will save them — at least for another few months — from financial disaster.

“I’m going to leave it all on the table,” said Kendra Anderson, who runs Bar Helix, a cocktail lounge on Larimer Street that has moved entirely outdoors for the season.

“We’ve gone all in on this,” wrote owners Cindhura Reddy and Elliot Strathmann on their restaurant Spuntino’s social media pages. “We’ve bet the farm. We are so hopeful.”

In the Highland neighborhood, Spuntino’s owners erected a tent over the restaurant’s parking lot, complete with hanging lanterns and greenery. Their new summer version is called “All’ Aperto,” or open-air in Italian.

Anderson’s RiNo bar, meanwhile, has switched to an alter-ego called Cabana X, which feels like an umbrella-shaded beach vacation via drinks and dinner.

Read more from the Denver Post here.