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La Loma has been through plenty of evolutions since founder Savina Mendoza started serving her distinctive pea-soup-hued green chile in a Victorian cottage in Jefferson Park in 1973. La Loma—or rather, Savina’s Mexican Kitchen, as of today—now sits in the pantheon of Denver’s most venerable Mexican restaurants, having survived an ownership change, two moves, and, most recently, a divorce.
In La Loma’s early days, oilman Milford “Sonny” Brinkerhoff enjoyed “Grandma” Savina’s food so much that he and his son William bought the business. In 1981, they moved it to a spacious new spot on West 26th Avenue—just far enough away from a nearby school that La Loma could get a liquor license and Sonny could enjoy a margarita with his chile rellenos.
The Brinkerhoff family has operated La Loma ever since. Sonny died in 2012 at the age of 92, but William still guides Brinkerhoff Hospitality along with his son Mark, who joined the business in 2010. In 2016, they sold the Jefferson Park property and reopened downtown (on Tremont Street, across from the Brown Palace). The next year, they added an upscale Southwestern eatery called Sierra in Lone Tree, and in 2020, they expanded the La Loma brand with a Castle Rock outpost. Then, in 2023, Brinkerhoff Hospitality opened Caldéro in the McGregor Square development in LoDo.
That momentum hit a speed bump, however, in December 2024, when William and his wife, Renée, divorced, and the restaurant business was divided between the two. William and Mark would operate the Tremont Street and Castle Rock locations as well as Sierra. Renée and the former couple’s other son, William Brinkerhoff Jr., were awarded the La Loma in Parker and Caldéro, which they were recently allowed by a federal court to rebrand with the La Loma name.
According to their company, La Loma Restaurants, Renée is now the “sole exclusive owner and operator of the beloved La Loma brand and restaurants.” Renée and William Jr. also debuted a new La Loma in the Denver Tech Center on August 21. “La Loma customers will continue to experience all their favorite classic dishes, and everything they have always experienced—including the award-winning green chile,” she says.
Thankfully for fans of Savina’s original green chile—the one that earned top honors in 5280’s green chile blind tasting of 15 different restaurants’ versions last year—a Douglas County court arbiter gave the two sides joint custody of that precious recipe. But having two separate businesses operating restaurants under the same name proved too confusing for La Loma customers. The potential for misunderstandings (such as having a gift card from one La Loma presented at the other’s business, which Mark says has happened) is why William and Mark have, as of September 4, 2025, changed the name of their two La Loma locations to Savina’s Mexican Kitchen. “In a bid to make peace, we’ve given my mom the La Loma name,” Mark says. “We both can’t have the name; we can’t control the customer experience at both.”
Mark says he and his father have plans for more Savina’s locations, including one in Loveland slated for a spring 2026 debut and another in Colorado Springs. These will join the Brinkerhoff, a Mexico City–inspired steak and sushi restaurant, and Bar Hummingbird, its cocktail bar sibling, both expected to open in Castle Rock this fall.
“This was Savina’s creation,” Mark says. “We’ve been stewards of what has been set in motion ages ago.”
La Loma’s vs. Savina’s Green Chile
Although both sides of the family have Savina’s famous green chile recipe, Mark says that the way it’s prepared can differ depending on the cook—some of whom have worked for La Loma for decades—and the equipment. (He also believes that the green chile recipe has been recreated outside of his family’s restaurants.)
If you’re a fan, you’re probably most concerned about how the changes and separate ownership of La Loma and Savina’s will affect your ability to get your green chile fix. We were curious, too, so we tasted batches from the Tremont Street Savina’s and the McGregor Square La Loma (both priced at $15 for a bowl with house-made tortillas or $18 for a plate with beans, rice, and tortillas).
The verdict? They were so nearly identical—viscous like gravy, studded with pork, and mildly spicy—that it was clear they were made from the same recipe. The McGregor Square version looked and tasted like it had spent just a little longer on the burner, with a slight brownish tint darkening the familiar pale green. Time will tell if more differences emerge, but for now, green chile enthusiasts can breathe a sigh of relief that they’ll still be able to enjoy it at any of La Loma’s and Savina’s locations.
