An odd sense of mourning loomed over Casey Shaw as she finished shopping at Natural Grocers on Colfax Avenue and Washington Street last week.
Just the day before, the Colorado-based grocery chain had announced it would close its Capitol Hill location after 10 years on that block, citing “theft and safety issues.”
The announcement sent shockwaves through the neighborhood, where many residents like Shaw rely on Natural Grocers for their weekly grocery trips. It has also reopened a debate about homelessness, drug use and crime in one of central Denver’s busiest corridors.
Shaw said she’s been going to that location since it opened, and now, she doesn’t know what to do.
“I don't want to shop at Trader Joe's. I don't want to shop at King Soopers. I don't want to shop at … Whole Foods,” Shaw said. “I want to shop here. It is just a few blocks away.”
Shaw, a longtime Capitol Hill resident, said it’s the latest in a recent slew of closures that is making her and her family think about leaving the neighborhood. But she doesn’t blame Natural Grocers for closing. She said she witnessed theft in the store firsthand, and Denverite's review of police data shows a spike in nonviolent crime around the store.
The Capitol Hill store is set to close on Oct. 31. Natural Grocers has not announced any further closures among its 45 other stores in Colorado open, including its six other Denver stores. The chain, headquartered in Lakewood, opened a Central Park store last year.
Data shows a significant increase in 911 calls for the store and the area.
Denver police data show a significant rise in complaints centered on the grocery store. In 2024, DPD received 78 calls to service to Natural Grocers. In the entirety of 2023, there were just 15 calls to the grocery store.
Data on confirmed crimes shows a similar uptick this year, particularly in the last few months. Those numbers have been flat for Capitol Hill and the rest of the city as a whole.
Half of the incidents logged on Natural Grocer’s block since July 2024 were related to drug or alcohol use. But there was no significant uptick in violent crimes, mirroring similar trends in the neighborhood and the city.
Denver police said they’ve used several strategies to try and meet the needs of businesses and residents of the neighborhood.
“Denver Police officers have been in contact with store management to address the crime in and around the store,” a DPD spokesperson said. “Community Resource Officers worked to provide safety assessments and offered suggestions to increase safety and security for the business. DPD also conducted extra patrols in the area to help curb potential criminal activity.”
Frank Locantore, executive director of the Colfax Avenue Business Improvement District, said the uptick in crime in the area could be explained by a variety of factors. He said the block appears to have fallen into a self-fulfilling prophecy — more businesses closing up shop leads to less foot traffic in the area, which potentially leads to more opportunity for criminal activity.
He also theorized that crime that was happening just a few blocks down has moved towards Natural Grocers. Locantore said the problem area in recent years has been the 1400 block of Ogden Street. Recently, businesses in the area have told him crime in that area has improved, he said.
“This is what several of us call squeezing a balloon,” Locantore said. “While the issues are not there in the 1400 block of Ogden, they went someplace, the balloon was squeezed and they seem to have gone to the 1400 block of Pearl area.”
Some believe Natural Grocers and the city could have done more to curb theft along Colfax.
A majority of calls to Natural Grocers this year have been to throw out an individual or report theft. One cashier told Denverite that Natural Grocers has a “zero enforcement” policy that discourages cracking down on shoplifting. Natural Grocers declined to comment on the details of its loss prevention policies, but described the closure as “sad for all of us”
“We prioritize the safety of our Crew and customers,” a company spokesperson said. “The theft made it hard to do this, while operating a sustainable business. We remain committed to serving the Downtown Denver area and hope that folks choose one of our nearby six locations and a new store home.”
Josh Robinson, the owner of neighboring Argonaut Wine and Liquor, said his company’s policy is more aggressive. Employees are asked to try to intervene in shoplifting they witness and escalate the matter to the police if necessary. He’s worried that Natural Grocers leaving the area will attract more thieves to nearby businesses.
“It is a problem, and I think with any closure of any business in that area, it kind of becomes a little bit of a magnet for people that want to hang out there because there's less supervision,” Robinson said.
Robinson added that in recent weeks, getting a police response has been “tougher.” Denver Police Department data shows that average response time for a low-priority call in District 6, which the 1400 block of Pearl is located in, has been about 38 minutes.
Locantore said the Colfax Avenue Business Improvement District has been working to advocate for improvements along the busy corridor, and in some cases, taken matters into its own hands. He said during a similar spike in criminal activity on the 1400 block of Pearl Street in 2019, the district-funded group installed pedestrian light poles to improve nighttime visibility.
Still, he thinks the city can be doing more. He expressed a desire for Denver police to resume bike patrols in the area, which once resulted in more arrests and less crime. He also said he thinks police are asked to do too much, and instead called for more funding towards homeless outreach and mental health experts.
“The police are trying to be everything,” Locantore said. “And I feel like it's much better of you to hire a carpenter to fix your door jam as opposed to trying to teach a dentist to do that.”
As another business vacates the area, some wonder: What is the future of East Colfax?
Longtime residents of the area say the corridor is in a weird place right now. In recent years, major businesses, like 7-Eleven and Office Depot, have vacated the area. Tom’s Diner, the block’s iconic 24/7 greasy spoon, closed in March 2020, and now lives on as “bougie rowdy” Champagne Tiger, following a short-lived revival attempt as Tom’s Starlight. Empty storefronts, including one that advertises “HOT YOGA SCULPT CYCLING,” seem like permanent fixtures in the area.
And now, Natural Grocers, the neighborhood’s only grocery store bordering Colfax Avenue, is leaving at the end of the month.
Jeff Robinson, the uncle of Argonaut’s Josh Robinson and the landlord for many of the properties on the block, including Natural Grocers, said he’s not sure what will happen to the Natural Grocers site. He told Denverite the grocer’s lease continues for another four years, so unless the company buys out of the remainder of its contract or finds a subletter, the lot will stay empty.
He added that homelessness and drug use in the area isn’t new and that Argonaut and Sliceworks, which occupy his other properties in the area, have succeeded despite that.
“There's always kind of an undercurrent to the city there, but through over the 50 years we've seen it get better and get worse, and it's just a shame what's going on there now,” Jeff Robinson said.
Josh Robinson, of Argonaut, said he’s sad to see Natural Grocers leave, but is hopeful its closure will bring renewed focus to the area.
“We've been on that block for 50-plus years and we've dealt with the ups and downs, and it seems cyclical,” he said. “It seems like we're hopefully not starting too big of a downswing, and hopefully this will grab the attention of either the mayor or somebody who can help us get the right resources to make the block a better place.”
But some residents, like Casey Shaw, aren’t willing to wait for the slow hand of bureaucracy to come to Capitol Hill. She described her neighborhood as “too scary for her liking,” and while she has sympathy for homeless people, she draws the line at the drug abuse that she’s witnessed in the area.
Shaw and her family are already exploring options to leave Denver for Englewood.
“I'm done,” she said. “I'm done. And I love our apartment. We've been there for nine years. It's a big, huge apartment. I love the area, but it's over.”
But that sentiment is far from universal.
Linda Stevens, a former police officer who lives in Capitol Hill, said she’s of course disturbed by seeing drug abuse while walking up and down Colfax Avenue daily, but to her, it's a part of living in the city.
“It's downtown. That's how downtown is,” Stevens said. “There's homeless people, there's bad people, but there's more good than bad down here — way more.”
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