For 88 years, the pin on the corner of South University and Ohio was a red-brick pizza tavern with a neon sign in the window. This summer, it is a fenced dirt lot. Two blocks of the village strip you walk on a Saturday morning have shifted more in the last eighteen months than in the previous three decades.
If you already live in Belcaro or Bonnie Brae, the question is not whether the strip has changed. You have watched the fence go up. The question is what the block will actually feel like when the dust settles, and which of your habits still have a home here.
What actually came down at 740 South University
The Bonnie Brae Tavern, opened by Carl and Sue Dire in June 1934 and run by the same family for four generations, closed for the final time in June 2022 after 88 years in business. Alpine Investments and Revesco Properties bought the roughly three-quarter-acre parcel for $4.5 million and are building a three-story, 46-unit apartment building at 740 S. University Blvd., where the Tavern operated for nearly 90 years. Bulldozers took down the tavern building along with an existing retail building at the corner of Ohio Avenue and University Boulevard in June 2025.
The project is branded Akin Bonnie Brae. In January, Missouri-based Great Southern Bank lent the partnership $3.1 million, with the balance financed by a local private equity firm and other private real estate investors, and a rendering shows completion targeted for the spring of 2027. The ground floor is designed for retail, meaning the strip is losing a tavern footprint and gaining a mixed-use edge with more storefront doors on University than the block held before.
One detail worth holding onto: although the building will be demolished, the new owners plan to display the neon sign on the new building. That is not preservation in a landmark sense. It is a visual promise that the block is not pretending 1934 never happened.
The new anchor moved in across the street
While the Tavern site was being emptied out, the storefront directly opposite filled in. Ni Tuyo brings generational Mexican cuisine and agave-forward cocktails to Bonnie Brae from Chef Silvia Andaya and her team, Adolfo Aguilar and Jose Lucambio, at 730 South University from the family behind Adelitas Cocina Y Cantina and La Doña Mezcaleria.
The menu is built around shared plates rather than fast turnover. Ni Tuyo features tacos, margaritas, eclectic appetizers, and five or six different molcajetes, a traditional dish like a stew shared by the table, plus a Mexican charcuterie program. The bar carries 25 to 30 mezcals and 20 to 25 tequilas, a smaller and more thoughtful list than a typical agave-heavy Denver room. The restaurant operates as walk-in only, a choice the owners describe as better accommodating the natural flow of guests and welcoming those who join spontaneously.
Two things follow from that. First, the block's center of gravity moved across the street. Where residents used to point out-of-town guests at 740, they now point at 730. Second, the strip's evening character shifted from pizza-and-a-pitcher to a longer, slower, agave-driven meal. If your Saturday-night pattern involved the Tavern, it needs a new rhythm.
What has not moved
Everything else on the strip you actually rely on is still where you left it. That continuity is easier to see once the changing pieces are named:
| Address | Business | On the strip since | What it still does |
|---|---|---|---|
| 799 S. University | Bonnie Brae Ice Cream | 1986 | Homemade daily, rotating flavors, model train overhead |
| 785 S. University | Bonnie Brae Liquor | 1978 | Independent wine and spirits, local delivery |
| 730 S. University | Ni Tuyo | 2022 | Agave bar, molcajetes, walk-in only |
| 901 Bonnie Brae Blvd | Bonnie Brae Park | 1936 | 1.6-acre elliptical park, shaded loop |
Bonnie Brae Liquor at 785 S. University has served the community since 1978 with wines, spirits, beers, and liqueurs from around the world, and it now runs delivery for its neighbor: Bonnie Brae Ice Cream is delivered by Bonnie Brae Liquor. That is a two-storefront collaboration you would not find on a strip governed by chains, and it is the kind of arrangement that survives a redevelopment cycle precisely because it was not built by one.
The park itself is the reason the block reads as a village rather than a commercial corridor. Developer George W. Olinger modeled the neighborhood after a Kansas City subdivision named Bonnie Brae, hired a noted landscape architect in 1923, and let the streets follow the land's natural topography to capture the atmosphere of a Scottish village instead of the standard Denver grid. The elliptical park at the center of the original plan was finally constructed in 1936, homes were built around it, and Bonnie Brae became the oasis it was always designed to be. Ninety years later, the ellipse still does the work.
A late-summer loop that still works
A walking route for a Saturday evening, sized for a two-hour window between about six and eight:
- Start on the west side of the ellipse at Bonnie Brae Park, 901 Bonnie Brae Blvd. Give the loop one lap under the mature canopy while the day cools.
- Cut northwest to 730 S. University for an early sit-down at Ni Tuyo. Walk-in only, so arriving before seven is the difference between a bar seat and a wait.
- Cross University to 799 and finish the meal at Bonnie Brae Ice Cream. Classic and creative flavors in a waffle or mini cake cone, with cozy indoor seating and outdoor spots.
- Loop south down Gaylord Street. The Old South Gaylord commercial block sits four blocks west of the ellipse and is close enough to fold into the same walk.
- Return east on Ohio, past the Akin construction fence at 740, back to the park.
For a longer errand day, the Belcaro Shopping Center at Colorado Boulevard and Alameda holds the second cluster: Osaka Sushi at 3940 E. Exposition Avenue for specialty rolls and hot entrees, and Great Harvest Bread Co. at 765 S. Colorado Boulevard for the morning bakery run.
Why this matters if you already live here
Three practical shifts to plan around while Akin is under construction:
- Parking on the west side of University tightens. With the Tavern's surface lot gone and construction fencing in place through spring 2027, the informal overflow parking most residents used for the ice cream line has moved to side streets. Ni Tuyo has about 20 parking spots in its own lot, temporary parking is available in the Bonnie Brae Cocktail parking lot, and street parking is free, but the buffer that 740 used to provide is gone until the new building opens.
- Weekend foot traffic clusters differently. The old pattern moved north-to-south from Tavern to Ice Cream. The new pattern is a tighter east-to-west hop between 730 and 799, which means the sidewalk in front of Ni Tuyo is the new bottleneck on warm evenings.
- The ground-floor retail at Akin is the wildcard. A three-story building with 46 apartments over street-level shops will add residents and shopfronts to a block that currently has neither at that address. What lands in those bays will shape the strip's next decade more than the apartments themselves.
The bigger point is that the Bonnie Brae village strip is not being erased. It is compressing. A single 88-year pizza-and-brunch anchor is being replaced by a denser mix: a boutique agave restaurant across the street, a still-independent liquor shop, a still-independent ice cream parlor, an incoming apartment building carrying the old neon sign on its facade, and an elliptical park that predates everyone. If you walked the block a decade ago, the geography reads as familiar. The tenants have simply reorganized around a smaller, quieter center.
For readers curious about how these blocks are cared for at the property level, Julie Egan and Sallie Grewe work throughout Belcaro and Bonnie Brae and the surrounding central Denver neighborhoods. If you would like a considered read on how your own home fits into the block's next chapter, request a private consultation or a market evaluation and we will walk it with you.
