One of Colorado’s first microbreweries, Rock Bottom, closes on 16th Street Mall after 35 years

In a state known for microbreweries, one of the pioneers is saying so long.

Rock Bottom Restaurant & Brewery, that helped launch Colorado’s craft beer movement, has permanently closed its original location on the 16th Street Mall after 35 years. A small typed notice on the front door delivered the goodbye: “Unfortunately, we have permanently closed. Thank you for allowing us to serve the downtown Denver community.”

Rock Bottom was founded in 1991 by Boulder restaurateur Frank Day, who had opened the Walnut Brewery on Pearl Street a year earlier as Boulder’s first brewpub. Day put his second concept on the ground floor of what was then the Prudential financial services building at 16th and Curtis and named it Rock Bottom — a cheeky nod to Prudential’s famous tagline, “Get a piece of the rock.” The brewpub quickly became one of Denver’s first microbreweries and an early rival to John Hickenlooper’s Wynkoop Brewing Co., which had opened in 1988. Hickenlooper told the Denver Post in a 2025 interview that Day “took every one of our ideas and made them so much better. When Frank opened Rock Bottom, it changed the face of brewpubs everywhere.” Day, who built a hospitality empire that included Old Chicago, the Denver ChopHouse, Hotel Boulderado and dozens of other Colorado concepts, died last August at 93.

What started as a single Denver brewpub became a national chain. Rock Bottom Restaurants, Inc. went public in 1994, expanded to nearly 200 locations across multiple states at its peak and was once the top-selling brewpub chain in the country, moving more than 39,000 barrels of beer in 2001 alone. The company was headquartered in Louisville, Colorado. But the brand contracted through the 2000s and 2010s, changed hands multiple times and was sold most recently to San Diego-based Kelly Companies in December 2024. Westword called the closure “the end of an era,” noting that the original Rock Bottom served as an unofficial training ground for brewers who went on to populate Colorado’s broader craft beer scene. The chain’s website now lists just six locations nationwide.

The Colorado Springs Rock Bottom also closed earlier this year. The building that housed the original Denver location, Independence Plaza, is poised to be purchased by the University of Colorado Foundation. The closure adds Rock Bottom to a growing list of longtime downtown Denver businesses that have shut their doors in recent months — the 1Up Arcade Bar’s original Blake Street location closed the same week — as the 16th Street Mall continues to navigate post-pandemic growing pains.