Littleton-based Carboy Winery officially announced this week that it will be taking over the former home of Govnr's Park Tavern, and owner Eric Hyatt confirmed for Denverite that he'll also be opening a breakfast restaurant inside the old Lala's Wine Bar + Pizzeria.
The breakfast restaurant will be called Ivy on 7th and has a target opening date of April 3. The team hopes to open Carboy Winery and an accompanying restaurant and retail shop this summer.
Denver chef Rebecca Weitzman -- back from more than a decade in New York -- is returning to head up the breakfast kitchen as well as the Carboy kitchen.
"Rebecca really does like working with vegetables and focuses on healthful eating and preparation, so a lot of that is going to be going into her menu," Hyatt said. "But it's also going to satisfy someone like myself who -- I don't really care about eating healthy when I eat breakfast, I just want something good."
Nearly everything will be made from scratch, much of it locally sourced. They'll be smoking local fish in-house, making sausage and bacon from local pork in-house. Baked goods will all be made from scratch in-house.
At first, the menu will be pretty standard breakfast fare -- bagels, scones, bread and the like. Eventually they'll ramp up to full breakfast service with an emphasis on weekend brunch. Ivy on 7th will be divided into a full-service restaurant and a coffee shop-like area seating 30-40 people, where customers can order from the counter and hang out. Jason Snopkoski, former bar manager at Avanti, is in charge of the beverage program.
"They're going for a Montréal café kind of vibe as far as the menu goes," Hyatt said.
Over at the Carboy kitchen, the plan is for a variety of Mediterranean food.
Carboy first opened in 2016 and has since expanded to Breckenridge. They'll continue to produce wine at the Littleton location (6885 S. Santa Fe Drive) as they add some production at the Capitol Hill location (672 Logan St.). Kevin Webber, director of operations for Carboy, said he's long had the goal of setting up shop in Denver. They'll bring the Carboy wine club to the new location, and use the large space to host private events.
The patios will stay, but Govnr's Park's beloved 90-year-old palm tree had to go, to protect it from construction. Hyatt put the tree on Craigslist, free to a good home. He ended up finding a taker in restaurateur Kevin Delk, who'd been looking for a tree for his Caribbean-flavored Capitol Hill spot Bang Up to the Elephant, 9news reported.
Hyatt first brought his plans to the Capitol Hill United Neighbors at a December meeting Angelo's Taverna, which Hyatt also owns, to garner support. At the time, neither project was a certainty.
Hyatt told CHUN members then that he's committed to preserving the character of Govnr's Park, just as he did when Carboy opened its second location in the former Gold Pan Saloon on Breckenridge's Main Street.
"We understand the heritage of Govnr's Park and what that means to us, living in this neighborhood, and what that means to all of you living in this area," he said. "We're going to try to pay homage to that in the best way we can."
He also acknowledged the ways in which Mike Plancarte and John Ott, former owners of Govnr's Park and Lala's, were supportive of the neighborhood and CHUN.
"We are prepared to take that baton and run with it as well," he said.
Planarte and Ott announced the closure of their neighboring Capitol Hill restaurants, as well as neighboring 16th Street Mall institutions Marlowe's and Paramount Café, in September.
