From left, Emilia and Restaurant Olivia co-owners Austin Carson, Chef Ty Leon and Heather Morrison. (Courtesy Restaurant Olivia)
Owners of West Wash Park’s Restaurant Olivia are the first to claim retail space in The Current, the new RiNo office building.
Austin Carson, co-owner of Restaurant Olivia, said he and co-owners Ty Leon and Heather Morrison are opening a new Italian concept on the ground floor of the office building at 3615 Delgany St.
The restaurant, which will be called Emilia, will open in 3,700 square feet next year.
Carson said he and his co-owners have been casually developing the idea for Emilia for about two years. But the group wasn’t actively working to launch it until they were approached by The Current’s ownership.
“The folks at The Current approached us … and we were intrigued,” Carson said. “We had in our heads that we would open another place at some point and the opportunity presented itself in a way that felt right.”
The Current, an office building at 3615 Delgany St. in Denver, was completed last year. (BusinessDen file)
The 12-story Current was completed last year by Seattle-based development firm Schnitzer West and Denver-based Craft Cos.
“They bring a proven track record of creating standout dining destinations,” said Doug Zabel of Schnitzer West.
Emilia is the only retail tenant signed on for The Current, but Zabel said he has a letter of intent for the remaining 1,880 square feet.
Carson said the new space is a blank shell and requires a full buildout. Schnitzer West is fronting a portion of that through a tenant improvement allowance.
To finance the rest, Carson said he and his partners are raising about $500,000 from investors, $350,000 of which is already committed.
While still an Italian restaurant, Carson said Emilia will differ from Olivia, which opened in 2020. For one, it will focus on traditional dishes from the northern Italy region of Emilia-Romagna, its namesake, while Olivia specializes in pasta dishes.
“Ty in particular found a resonance with that particular part of Italy and some of the more famous products being produced there, and it just spun off from there,” Carson said.
The bar program will also be more extensive, and the wine selection more refined than Olivia’s. The space itself, meanwhile, is double the size of Olivia and larger than what Carson, Leon or Morrison have operated in a while.
“The vast majority of our experience going back a decade is in small restaurants,” Carson said. “This is a very good opportunity to see if we can scale our style of service and our standards.”
The trio worked together at Bonanno’s Mizuna before leaving to open Bistro Georgette in Avanti in 2018. In September 2019, they bought Café Marmotte at 290 S. Downing St., reopening it as Restaurant Olivia the following January.
In 2022, they expanded to the adjacent space at 284 S. Downing St. to extend Restaurant Olivia’s seating and add P.S. Olivia, a handmade pasta shop. That project hit delays and ended up taking over 23 months, Carson said. It opened earlier this year.
“I’d be lying if I said that process wasn’t painful,” Carson said of the P.S. Olivia buildout. “But for what it’s worth, I get the impression that things are trending in the right direction. Everybody I dealt with this last month … was really open and amenable to helping. That was in contrast to the experience we had last year.”
Meanwhile, The Current’s office space seems less secure than its retail. Moye White, a major Denver law firm and marquee tenant, has 42,500 square feet of office space in The Current. But the firm is ceasing operations, with most of its attorneys jumping to Fennemore. Questions about what will happen to Moye White’s real estate remain unanswered.
From left, Emilia and Restaurant Olivia co-owners Austin Carson, Chef Ty Leon and Heather Morrison. (Courtesy Restaurant Olivia)
Owners of West Wash Park’s Restaurant Olivia are the first to claim retail space in The Current, the new RiNo office building.
Austin Carson, co-owner of Restaurant Olivia, said he and co-owners Ty Leon and Heather Morrison are opening a new Italian concept on the ground floor of the office building at 3615 Delgany St.
The restaurant, which will be called Emilia, will open in 3,700 square feet next year.
Carson said he and his co-owners have been casually developing the idea for Emilia for about two years. But the group wasn’t actively working to launch it until they were approached by The Current’s ownership.
“The folks at The Current approached us … and we were intrigued,” Carson said. “We had in our heads that we would open another place at some point and the opportunity presented itself in a way that felt right.”
The Current, an office building at 3615 Delgany St. in Denver, was completed last year. (BusinessDen file)
The 12-story Current was completed last year by Seattle-based development firm Schnitzer West and Denver-based Craft Cos.
“They bring a proven track record of creating standout dining destinations,” said Doug Zabel of Schnitzer West.
Emilia is the only retail tenant signed on for The Current, but Zabel said he has a letter of intent for the remaining 1,880 square feet.
Carson said the new space is a blank shell and requires a full buildout. Schnitzer West is fronting a portion of that through a tenant improvement allowance.
To finance the rest, Carson said he and his partners are raising about $500,000 from investors, $350,000 of which is already committed.
While still an Italian restaurant, Carson said Emilia will differ from Olivia, which opened in 2020. For one, it will focus on traditional dishes from the northern Italy region of Emilia-Romagna, its namesake, while Olivia specializes in pasta dishes.
“Ty in particular found a resonance with that particular part of Italy and some of the more famous products being produced there, and it just spun off from there,” Carson said.
The bar program will also be more extensive, and the wine selection more refined than Olivia’s. The space itself, meanwhile, is double the size of Olivia and larger than what Carson, Leon or Morrison have operated in a while.
“The vast majority of our experience going back a decade is in small restaurants,” Carson said. “This is a very good opportunity to see if we can scale our style of service and our standards.”
The trio worked together at Bonanno’s Mizuna before leaving to open Bistro Georgette in Avanti in 2018. In September 2019, they bought Café Marmotte at 290 S. Downing St., reopening it as Restaurant Olivia the following January.
In 2022, they expanded to the adjacent space at 284 S. Downing St. to extend Restaurant Olivia’s seating and add P.S. Olivia, a handmade pasta shop. That project hit delays and ended up taking over 23 months, Carson said. It opened earlier this year.
“I’d be lying if I said that process wasn’t painful,” Carson said of the P.S. Olivia buildout. “But for what it’s worth, I get the impression that things are trending in the right direction. Everybody I dealt with this last month … was really open and amenable to helping. That was in contrast to the experience we had last year.”
Meanwhile, The Current’s office space seems less secure than its retail. Moye White, a major Denver law firm and marquee tenant, has 42,500 square feet of office space in The Current. But the firm is ceasing operations, with most of its attorneys jumping to Fennemore. Questions about what will happen to Moye White’s real estate remain unanswered.
