Deep Roots Winery is getting transplanted to Golden, making it the second winery leaving RiNo this month.
The eatery and taproom at 2875 Blake St., which has operated there since 2021, will close on Dec. 15 and reopen in mid-January at 1375 Catamount Drive.
But its kitchen and food won’t be making the trip west.
“We’re really looking forward to just focusing on the wine,” said Teara Walters, who owns the spot with her husband, Steve.
The grapes will be joined by hard ciders and lemonade wines, two lines which they can focus on expanding since they won’t make food themselves. For those in need of a bite, rotating food trucks will frequent the new 3,000-square-foot space.
Fellow RiNo winery Infinite Monkey Theorem will also close at the end of this month, citing rising costs and declining wine sales. It will not relocate.
Deep Roots’ move, Walters said, will help the business cut costs and make up for declining revenues over the last two years.
“We’re expecting to start slow but hope to build a following,” she said. “We’ll also be working on distribution now that we’re moving out of the kitchen, which hadn’t been something we did because we couldn’t produce enough volume with the food.”
The Walters signed a three-year lease in June for the Golden spot, which is away from downtown but a few blocks from gluten-free brewer Holidaily. Rent is about half of what Deep Roots has been paying for its 5,000-square-foot RiNo spot, she said.
“We always intended to open a location in Golden,” Walters said, noting they live there. “Once we realized that things weren’t gonna rebound from COVID, it was about getting the permitting in place and timing it right.”
The staff will be smaller too, featuring just two part-time employees instead of the four part-time and one full-time they currently have. Walters also said they expect to hire two more part-timers in the summer.
The pair have been moving equipment to the new location and expect to finish the job once they close in the middle of this month. Bar construction also begins this week, adding to a “relatively move-in ready” space that has a patio with views of the foothills.
Walters said the $30,000 project will be entirely self-funded and noted the price tag is much more manageable than the $400,000 RiNo renovation.
Walters, along with her sister and husband, initially opened Deep Roots in 2017 at 1516 Wazee St. in LoDo. They leased the bigger space in RiNo for a second location right before the COVID-19 pandemic, and initially had eyed an opening in March or April 2020. But Deep Roots ultimately didn’t debut in the neighborhood until July 2021.
“It was a rough way to enter into a new location,” Walters said. “It’s been a struggle.”
The original LoDo location closed in February 2022. Around that time, Walter’s sister — who had been Deep Roots’ general manager and chef — moved to Germany when her military husband was stationed there.
“These past summers just did not show up like they did before,” she said. “We saw a pop in ‘22, but ‘23 and ‘24 both steadily declined.”
The husband and wife toyed with the idea of operating in both RiNo and Golden, but with less foot traffic in 2024 again, that would’ve been unsustainable, she said. They each also work full time as healthcare consultants, along with three kids, which keeps them busy too.
“It’s one of those things where we thought it’d be nice to go back to doing what we love,” Walters said.
Wineries aren’t the only booze option facing challenges in RiNo. 14er Brewing closed last month after an eight-year run.