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Troy Guard is opening a brewery/food hall, and he wants your restaurant ideas.
The chef is the owner of a pretty stellar lineup of restaurants—Guard & Grace, TAG, FNG, Mister Tuna, TAG Burger Bar, Hashtag, Bubu, and multiple outposts of Los Chingones—but for his upcoming DTC brewery and food collective, he wants someone else to do the cooking.
“We wanted to own the land and run the thing, but not do the concepts myself. We want to bring in some cool people who make good food. It’s not all about what we do,” Guard says.
For the still unnamed endeavor, which will go into the former C.B. & Potts spot in Greenwood Village, Guard is actively looking for aspiring restaurateurs (or experienced operators who want to try something different) to come to him with ideas. The ten or so food vendors that meet Guard’s standards will set up shop for as little as three months or much longer, depending on what the vendors want to do and how the community responds.
Guard says he will soon put up a website, where people can submit applications for their concepts.
“A lot of food halls go out and look for what they want. We want people to come to us,” he says.
Guard is also going to consult with partners Ken Himel (owner of Star Bar) and wife Nikki Guard (beverage director for TAG Restaurant Group) about which brewers will be responsible for the eight to ten beers brewed on site at the forthcoming hall.
“The next evolution of being a restaurant owner is dabbling in different things. We’re trying to branch out and do new things and get our staff to move up the ranks as well,” Guard says.
While Denver has been aggressive with food hall openings over the past few years, this will be the first for south of the city. Guard says he hopes to get everything cooking and brewing by mid-summer 2020.