Intermountain Jewish News readers won’t be surprised to hear that Casa Bonita is not on our list of commonly visited metro area sites. Of course, back when the Jewish Consumptives Relief Society, founded by IJN founder and editor Dr. Charles Spivak, was still tending to tubercular patients, West Colfax in Lakewood — for a while even incorporated as Spivak, Colorado — was very much on our radar. In recent years, not so much. Yet, the closure of this restaurant has caused much consternation to many in the Denver area, leading to no less than the governor asking the public to weigh in on the future of this local favorite.
It makes us wonder why this particular business is receiving this type of outsized attention — from government officials no less. Any capitalist society sees businesses come and go — and buildings come and go, as we in Denver know all too well. Casa Bonita surely isn’t the only one beloved by many. The pandemic in particular has seen other, much-beloved Denver venues shut their doors. No period of public commentary was called for in those cases.
If one takes a longer view — think of all the iconic Jewish-owned businesses and buildings of West Colfax that over the last century closed their doors. We struggle to remember a similar public outcry.
Just this week, another cultural icon, the Welton Street Café in Five Points, announced it was relaunching and shared that the pandemic nearly ruined the business. Indeed its owner, while optimistic about the upcoming move and upgrades, said its future was still precarious. Yet, the governor is not weighing in, even though a strong argument could be made that as one of the few black-owned businesses in the historically black Five Points neighborhood, Welton Street Café is also a cultural icon worth preserving.
Considering how radically the neighborhood has gentrified, how many of its original residents have been displaced and how tenacious black leaders have been about trying to preserve its fading history, this business has a lot more at stake than a kitschy building in a strip mall.
We understand the governor is just having a bit of fun with this. But we’re still left wondering why this one brand, this one building, has become such a cultural focal point. It’s way out of proportion.
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