Colorado diners are losing two beloved Denver restaurants in July, and both closures hit a different part of the city’s food memory.
One is a small RiNo-area breakfast spot that became a daily ritual for regulars. The other is a 22-year American bistro that helped shape Denver’s chef-driven restaurant scene long before the city became a national dining destination.
Together, they add to a difficult stretch for Colorado restaurants, following other recent goodbyes like a beloved downtown Colorado eatery that closed after 20 years.
Here are the two Colorado restaurants closing in July.
Port Side in Denver
Port Side in the Five Points neighborhood is closing July 5, 2026, after 10 years in business.
For the last decade, the small cafe at 2500 Larimer Street has built a loyal following around breakfast sandwiches, coffee, burritos and an easy neighborhood feel. It was not one of Denver’s flashiest restaurants, but that was part of its appeal.
Port Side became the kind of place people worked into their routines. Regulars stopped in for breakfast. Neighbors knew the food. Customers showed up not just because it was convenient, but because it felt personal.
Owner Chris Bell, 56, announced the closure on Instagram on June 17, 2026, after deciding not to renew his lease. Bell is not just stepping away from Port Side — he is stepping away from decades of continuous line work. Before opening Port Side in 2016, he spent 13 years cooking at Potoger. That adds up to more than two decades behind the line without a significant break.
The toll on his body was part of the decision. “My body doesn’t recover like it used to,” Bell told Westword. “I can push hard on the line for hours and hours, but I gotta lay down afterward.” He also cited the shifting economics of Denver dining. “The market is changing, everything’s changing, and I kind of don’t want to charge $20 for a breakfast sandwich.”
“I decided not to re-sign our lease and go out on my terms, on top, in a good place,” he wrote in his closing announcement.
That makes the closing bittersweet. Port Side is going out with affection, not indifference.
After the news spread, some 200 comments flooded Bell’s Instagram post from customers and fellow food business owners. The next morning, there was a line out the door — customers not only ordering their usual dishes but leaving $100 bills in the tip jar and looking Bell in the eye to express their sadness and appreciation firsthand.
Some restaurants become beloved because they win awards. Others become beloved because they quietly take care of a neighborhood for years.
Port Side belongs to that second group.
Table 6 in Denver
Table 6 is closing July 9, 2026, after 22 years in business.
The restaurant at 609 Corona Street, in Denver’s Alamo Placita neighborhood just off East Sixth Avenue, has been one of the city’s longtime neighborhood bistros. When it opened in 2004 under chef Scott Whitcomb, it arrived during an important moment for the city’s dining scene — and made an immediate national impression. Shortly after opening, Table 6 landed on Esquire’s list of the year’s 21 Best New Restaurants, sparking an early rush of foodie tourism long before the Michelin Guide and James Beard Foundation started paying much attention to Denver.
Aaron Forman became the owner in 2006 following Whitcomb’s departure and ran the restaurant for nearly 17 years, becoming a fixture in the Denver dining community. His sudden death in February 2023 sent a wave of grief through the local restaurant scene. In May 2023, general manager Amanda Davis and chef Aniedra Nichols took over as co-owners, keeping the restaurant going and the quality consistently high.
Nichols has been at Table 6 since late 2020. Her background in Denver’s restaurant world stretches back to 2007, when she became executive chef at Elway’s, a role she held until 2016. She and Forman had even cooked together at the James Beard House in 2015. When she and Davis took over in 2023, they called it a natural evolution rather than a reinvention — “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” Nichols said at the time.
Now, after 22 years, Table 6 is simply ending. There is no sale, no rebranding, no new owner taking over the concept. The restaurant is closing because Nichols has decided, after 29 years in the industry, to step back.
“This is just a story of knowing when something has run its beautiful course,” Nichols told Westword. “Table 6 had an incredible 22-year run. It became exactly what we hoped it would be — a neighborhood institution where people celebrated first dates, anniversaries, birthdays, promotions and ordinary Tuesday nights that somehow became unforgettable. That’s a legacy I am incredibly proud of.”
As for what comes next: “For the first time in almost three decades, I don’t want to jump into another kitchen,” Nichols said. “I would like to take a vacation, sit somewhere and take a long exhale for a minute and give myself some space to think about what the next chapter of my life looks like. Because I still love this business, I always will. But after 29 years of giving this industry everything I have, I owe it to myself to be thoughtful instead of reactive.”
For longtime customers, the goodbye is about more than one final dinner. It is about saying farewell to a place that survived four presidential administrations, the rise of social media, a global pandemic, the loss of a beloved owner, and every wave of new restaurants that arrived to challenge Denver’s established favorites.
Denver is losing two different kinds of favorites
Port Side and Table 6 are very different restaurants.
One was a small breakfast cafe — a 10-year daily ritual for a devoted neighborhood crowd, ended by a chef who spent more than two decades on the line and is finally stepping away. The other was a 22-year bistro that helped introduce Denver to chef-driven dining, survived ownership changes and personal tragedy, and is now closing the right way: on its own terms.
But both closings show how beloved restaurants can matter in different ways.
A restaurant does not have to be huge to become important. It does not have to be new to stay relevant. And it does not have to close suddenly for the goodbye to hurt.
This July, Colorado diners are losing two places that served their communities with personality, consistency and heart.
After July 9, both will be memories.
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