For the second time in a year, the Campus Lounge has reopened under new management with a retooled format that references its 40-year history as a hockey-centric dive in the Bonnie Brae neighborhood, but updates it with trendy menu offerings and other improvements from its most recent incarnation.
“We believe in giving the Campus Lounge back to our community,” said interim general manager Alex Kaulbach, a 47-year-old restaurant consultant who has run eateries in Spain, Austin, Texas, and, since 1997, Denver. “We’ve done as much as we can to nod to Jim Wiste, the original owner.”
Those nods to Wiste, who died in January, include a commemorative plaque next to the front door and a large, framed picture of him above the open kitchen. The public got its first chance to see them on Sunday when the bar opened its big yellow door after two nights of test runs.
But Daniel Landes, the Watercourse Foods and City O’ City founder who shuttered his own reboot of the Campus Lounge a couple of months after Wiste’s death, also maintains a presence of sorts at 701 S. University Blvd.
Not only did Landes invest in getting the building back up to code, Kaulbach said, but he filled it with new tables, chairs, fixtures and pricey, top-notch kitchen equipment.
“Let’s face it: this was a dive bar for a long, long time,” Kaulbach said. “There were things that were happening in here that were inappropriate — and we’ll just leave it at that. What Dan Landes did with his team was really fundamental to helping our success and putting the building back in order.”
New owners Dan and Jeff Nickless – a father-son team with deep roots in the south Denver neighborhood — and Steve Bentley have largely duplicated the layout of Landes’ version since they bought the 80-year-old building in August. They’ve even kept his vintage Pac-Mac machine. But they also brought the decor and menu back in line with the Lounge’s longtime character, as Broncos and Avalanche jerseys now line the walls and Game Day subscription packages have been purchased for the NFL and NHL seasons that will be displayed on the bank of TVs.
“It’s a cliché, but we want to respect the nostalgia,” Jeff Nickless told The Denver Post in September.
Kaulbach said the current management team wanted to give the bar “your living room atmosphere.” As noted, 14 flatscreen TVs now adorn the walls, including in the bathrooms, a notable change from Landes’ version, which got rid of the TVs for hip, framed art and moody red lighting.
“It was also important that we expanded and contemporized the menu and kept some things on trend,” Kaulbach said.
Presided over by former Cap City kitchen manager Shayden Ward, the menu hints at Campus Lounge’s game-day past with chili cheese fries, nachos, onion rings, hot wings, red and green chile, and the requisite smothered burrito (most for less than $10). But it also incorporates some of Landes’ vegan aspirations with a Slammin’ Superfood salad ($11.69), a micro-greens sandwich ($14.79) and Blistered Shishito Chiles ($6.69).
The drink menu attempts to find a happy medium between recent identities: Gone are Landes’ Mezcal Penicilin and $30 (minimum) bottles of wine, but they’ve been replaced by a smoked negroni, house Yellow Door cocktail (Hendrick’s gin, Lemoncello, Chambord) and the Espresso-infused Ellipse Park — all for $12.
“The negroni comes out on a wood board, with a beautiful rocks glass and great big ice cubes — which we don’t charge $3 for — and then we cut that with a fish bowl and smoke the negroni,” Kaulbach said. “So when it comes to the table the customer lifts up the bowl and a big waft of smoke comes out and everybody goes, ‘Ooh, what’s that?’”
The new owners are certainly anticipating bigger crowds than Landes’ iteration. While Landes only employed a dozen full-time staff members, the new Campus Lounge has nearly 50. Kaulbach describes the Oct. 21 official reopening day as a nonstop butt-kicking, with 40 people waiting outside before it opened and a 10-hour rush that followed.
“It exposed our weaknesses, so we had a debrief front- and back-of-the-house and utilized some great feedback from both places,” Kaulbach said, noting that he was only brought on a couple of weeks after the former general manager left the position due to stress that was impacting his health and family. “It’s unfortunate that one of the only reasons I have a job is because of those horrible statistics in the independent restaurant segment, with nearly 30 percent (of restaurants) gone in the first year, and 80 or 90 percent by year five. Generally it’s undercapitalization that will kill them. And people tend to forget the details.”
Details are what the new Campus Lounge is all about. Food that’s mostly local (or within a 400-mile radius, anyway), “95 percent from scratch” and sourced with an eye for both profitability and customer satisfaction. An emphasis on service and healthy employee culture.
“When we were first getting to know each other I made a little questionnaire, kind of quirky, asking people questions like, ‘Cake or pie?’ ” Kaulbach said of the staff, which he plans to oversee until ownership is happy with the overall operation. “We are definitely a pie house. I asked everybody how long they’ve been in the industry and it’s a rather young staff, 297 years plus the three weeks here — not including me. I’m really proud of them, and let’s face it, this is not easy work and we’re competing for employees with the marijuana industry.”
The staff is also encouraged, Kaulbach said, by the community response thus far. Other than social media and scattered press, the Campus Lounge has not run a targeted marketing campaign to announce its rebirth, relying instead of word-of-mouth, social media and curious passersby.
“Every person that’s come by over the last three weeks who peeked in the door, we let them in and walked them around,” he said. “We told them what we were doing and we asked them for stories, because they were all very interested in what was going on, and a lot of them have a history with this place.”
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