{"id":800031,"date":"2019-10-03T09:35:31","date_gmt":"2019-10-03T15:35:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/?p=372269"},"modified":"2019-10-03T09:35:31","modified_gmt":"2019-10-03T15:35:31","slug":"rio-grande-closing-its-doors-outer-range-to-take-over-the-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/rio-grande-closing-its-doors-outer-range-to-take-over-the-space\/","title":{"rendered":"Rio Grande closing its doors; Outer Range to take over the space"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Rio Grande Mexican Restaurant will close its doors due to financial struggles. Outer Range will take over the space.<\/strong>
Krista Driscoll \/ kdriscoll@summitdaily.com<\/a> |<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

FRISCO \u2014 Rio Grande Mexican Restaurant in Frisco will close its doors Sunday, Oct. 13, because the restaurant is financially unsustainable, according to restaurant manager Rob Prenz.<\/p>\n

The chain restaurant, which started in Fort Collins and made its way across the Front Range, opened up shop in Frisco four years ago, bringing its Tex-Mex fajitas, margaritas and black beans to the High Country.<\/p>\n

Rio also closed a location in Steamboat Springs in 2015<\/a> because of difficulty operating far from its headquarters in Fort Collins. After the Frisco location closes, all existing Rio restaurants will be on the Front Range.<\/p>\n

Restaurant manager Rob Prenz said the competitive pay needed to keep good cooks and the loss of revenue during shoulder seasons mean the restaurant is no longer viable. He also said the space was too large.<\/p>\n

Prenz said the restaurant has been losing money for a while, and the management team was presented with the opportunity to get out of the building lease when Outer Range, the brewery next door, offered to take over the space in order to expand. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really too bad because just in the last couple of weeks people are finding out and people like it here. We\u2019ve got a good crew now,\u201d Prenz said. <\/p>\n

Prenz said it wasn\u2019t always this way. The management team wasn\u2019t prepared for the employment costs of Summit County, and it didn\u2019t offer high enough pay to stay competitive, he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe weren\u2019t competitive enough at first,\u201d Prenz said. \u201cWe operated sloppily at times because we didn\u2019t have a great kitchen. It\u2019s worth it for us to pay absurdly high kitchen labor.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paying high wages might have helped Rio keep a quality kitchen team, but in the end, there wasn\u2019t enough income to keep the restaurant going. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the worst part really, is we no longer get to employ a lot of great people,\u201d Prenz said.<\/p>\n

Outer Range, the brewery that will be taking over the space after the restaurant moves out, plans to expand. Emily Cleghorn \u2014 co-owner of the brewery along with her husband, Lee \u2014 said the vision for the brewery was to be a hang-out spot for locals and visitors to gather and recount their day. The issue has been space, and 2,400 square feet isn\u2019t cutting it anymore, she said. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt gets really tight in there. Trying to fit a taproom and production in 2,400 square feet gets really challenging,\u201d Cleghorn said. \u201cBeing able to expand into the other space will allow us to separate the taproom from the production area.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the additional 5,400 square feet, the Cleghorns want to introduce a few new features to the brewery. Outer Range is receiving consultation from Chris Schmidt, chef and owner of Craftsman in Edwards, as they dip their toes into the food side of things. Schmidt will be hiring a chef to run Outer Range\u2019s new counter-service Thai fried chicken restaurant. <\/p>\n

\u201cThink of the national hot chicken craze,\u201d Cleghorn said.<\/p>\n

Outer Range is also partnering with Breckenridge\u2019s Mountain Dwellers Coffee Shop, which will be serving its coffee in the brewery.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are very few spaces this size in Summit County where people can gather, so if we can have a coffee shop, as well, for people to enjoy in the morning, that\u2019s really exciting to us,\u201d Cleghorn said. <\/p>\n

Outer Range will talk more about the expansion at its annual Snow Stoke party from noon to 3 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 5. The party will \u201ccelebrate the return of snow in Summit County,\u201d according to the brewery\u2019s Facebook event<\/a>, and new beers will be released.<\/p>\n

via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rio Grande Mexican Restaurant will close its doors due to financial struggles. Outer Range will take over the space.Krista Driscoll \/ kdriscoll@summitdaily.com | FRISCO \u2014 Rio Grande Mexican Restaurant in Frisco will close its doors Sunday, Oct. 13, because the restaurant is financially unsustainable, according to restaurant manager Rob Prenz. The chain restaurant, which started […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-800031","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-24 19:55:35","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=800031"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800031\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=800031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=800031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=800031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}