With the U.S. government back open for business, bars and restaurants near Denver’s Federal Center complex could see a pickup in foot traffic.
The office complex, home to 28 different federal agencies and the largest single grouping of U.S government buildings outside of Washington D.C., feeds customers to a number of small businesses in the area.
At Westrail Tap & Grill, a sports bar in the neighborhood west of the complex, the weekday lunch crowd was notably thinner during the shutdown, according to chef and operational manager Nate Gravina. The business took a hit of roughly 20 percent to its bottom line, he said.
“It was a pretty significant dip,” he said. “Honestly, [it] didn’t really cross our minds that it was going to affect us too much with those buildings being shut down. We have the hospital close by, and things like that. It was a little bigger of a difference than we really anticipated or expected.”
Gravina is focused on getting those customers back to his restaurant now that they’re back in the office.
“I think people are still kind of figuring out their day-to-day routine,’’ he said. “It’s been a big focus of ours to try to figure out how to become a big part of that.”
Government employees are back at the office after many were furloughed for 43 days during the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. President Donald Trump signed the resolution to reopen the government on Wednesday night. It could take a little while for government services to be fully up and running again.
Westrail focused on outreach during the shutdown to try to make up for the lost business, according to Gravina.
“We've kind of started to definitely up our social media game to try to get word out to the other areas around us, apartment buildings, things like that. Just kind of anything we could do to try to bring in that business,” he said.
The government shutdown isn’t the only challenge for restaurants in the area. Revenues at Westrail are lower than projected for the year, according to Gravina. Part of that could be due to the deep cuts to the federal workforce carried out by the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, shortly after Trump was sworn in for his second term.
But a general pullback in spending is another likely culprit, Gravina said.
“You can’t really be as loose with your money as you used to be able to. And all of us feel that way,” he said. “People are a lot more apt to save for that cushion than they were in years past, myself included.”
Winter is the busiest season for Westrail as a sports bar. But it’s been lackluster so far this year.
“During summer, when there’s no football, which is obviously our biggest moneymaker, we do see that little bit of a slowdown… We do tend to pick up in the winter, but we’re not seeing it as quickly as we did last year,” Gravina said.
The lunch crowd wasn’t notably different on Thursday, the first day post-shutdown. Gravina’s hoping for a boost later in the day.
“We have been coming up with ideas to entice them to come in now that the offices are back open. But I think happy hour today will kind of be the real testament to if we get that business back quickly or not,” Gravina said.
