From the creators of The Rayback Collective, a new neighborhood hang is coming to Denver.
It's called Improper City, and it's opening this week in conjunction with Movement Climbing Gym.
The two businesses share 50,000 square feet at 32nd and Walnut streets, with Improper City occupying 7,500 square feet with a bar, event area and indoor stage, plus another 12,000 square feet of outdoor space. There, they'll host a beer garden and rotating roster of food trucks.
Both Boulder's Rayback Collective (which turns 2 on Saturday) and Improper City are projects of Hank Grant and Justin Riley. Grant said they weren't even looking to start something new, but when the opportunity presented itself, they couldn't turn it down.
"I had gone back to my corporate job. Things were going so well that Justin and I, we were like, both of us don't need to be working here full-time," Grant said. "Three weeks later, Mike and Anne from Movement approached us and said, 'Hey, we have this really sweet spot in RiNo, we want you to do a similar concept down here.' And after we came down here, reluctantly, we saw this space and we were like, 'We have to do this.'"
A little more than a year later, they're ready to open Improper City. Grant said it will be more cocktail-focused, maybe, but they're playing it by ear as they did in Boulder.
"Denver is just a different market. The approach we took at Rayback was just kind of a wait-and-see. We didn't bolt anything down, we didn't want to do too much live music, too much of this, because we just wanna see what the neighborhood wants. And whatever they want us to be, we can kind of be a chameleon and adapt ourselves," he said.
"It's still the same gathering space — flexible, inviting, comfortable, we're not trying to turn a table and get you to buy something. You wanna come in and post up all day, — post up and hang out. And hopefully we'll touch different parts of people's lives, whether it's business, celebrations, birthday parties, going away parties, university stuff, sports, whatever. It should be for everybody."
Right now, the bar menu includes a dozen Colorado beers, two Infinite Monkey Theorem wines and six cocktails ranging from a simple gin and tonic to the Black Rose (above) with gin, lemon juice, rosemary and blackberry, and the Watermelon Infusion (below) with its enormous slice of watermelon.
Over at the 40,000-square-foot Movement — the largest of the company's three gyms — they'll have more than 50 complimentary yoga and fitness classes a week, childcare, locker rooms with towel service and a full selection of cardio machines and training equipment.
“We are incredibly excited to marry some of Colorado’s most cherished and popular trademarks under one roof,” Movement founder Mike Moelter said in a press release. “On the Improper City side, guests will enjoy a great café experience, Colorado’s renowned craft beers and an outdoor food-truck park. On the Movement side, they’ll have access to world-class rock climbing, fitness, and yoga. Our goal is to create a space for a community to gather unlike any other.”
Improper City had its soft opening Monday, and the grand opening will be Friday.
Hours are from 7 a.m. to midnight Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to midnight Saturday and 8 a.m. t0 10 p.m. Sunday.
