Rick Carroll/The Aspen Times
A building on East Hopkins Avenue that once was the source of litigation over noise complaints from its upstairs neighbors will be home to two new restaurants later this year.
Last week the Local Licensing Authority granted permission to two restaurants to sell liquor from their ground-level and upstairs spots at 308 E. Hopkins Ave., a location formerly inhabited by such drinking establishments as Bootsy Bellows, which had been sued by the building owners of noise issues. The two businesses have since relocated to other downtown Aspen addresses.
The building is owned by Michael Sedoy and Natalia Shvachko, of New York, who bought two condos there for $6.27 million in June 2011, later spending another $2 million to combine them into a penthouse. In January 2016, the couple bought the commercial space of the building for $6.3 million through JP’s Nevada Trust of Henderson, Nevada.
The building is located in the heart of Aspen’s Restaurant Row, a vibrant block for dining and entertainment.
This summer, two restaurants that are separate corporate entities but have the same general manager, David Grant, plan to open — one will be called The Ranch Room, the other Tatanka — from the commercial space.
“We are more than aware of the situation that presents itself with the space for both of our applicants,” Aspen attorney Alan Feldman told liquor board members at their meeting last week. “We have taken extraordinary steps to mitigate sounds in the building . … These applications are for restaurants that are not nightclubs. There are no dance floors, there is no DJ system, there are no gigantic sub-woofers.”
Grant added, “It is very important to the owners that we mitigate the sound.”
Last week a construction crew was busy at the location that will include The Ranch Room on the ground level, which Grant described as a “fine-dining establishment” with a charcuterie bar, “a high-priced menu and white tablecloth … as opposed to upstairs which his more casual situation.”
The Ranch Room’s business hours will be roughly from 4 to 10 p.m. daily, while the upstairs restaurant will have more modest offerings and be open for breakfast, lunch and dinner, Grant said. Breakfast service will start at approximately 9 a.m. or possibly sooner, he said. Tatanka will be the only breakfast spot on Restaurant Row since Over Easy at 304 E. Hopkins closed Oct. 31, 2017.
Grant said the goal is to open Tatanka, the upstairs restaurant, in June. The Ranch Room will open some time after that.