The owners of the Imperial Chinese Restaurant on Broadway are expanding their business by launching a new concept, Imperial Go, after acquiring four Sushi-Rama locations.
Imperial Restaurant Group bought the Sushi-Rama restaurants in Arista in Broomfield, Belleview Station in DTC, The Forum Fitzsimons in Aurora and Lincoln Commons in Lone Tree.
Sushi-Rama in RiNo was not part of the sale, according to The Morgan Stambaugh Group at Pinnacle Real Estate Advisors, who represented Imperial in the transactions.
Imperial Go will be a “fast-casual spinoff of the iconic Imperial Restaurant on South Broadway in Denver,” said Elizabeth Morgan, senior adviser with The Morgan Stambaugh Group.
These locations will feature the most popular items found at The Imperial and focus on pickup and delivery, Morgan said. All four restaurants are expected to open in early spring 2025.
CEO of Imperial Restaurant Group Dan Dietrich said he became interested in the restaurant business because he was consistently unimpressed with the quality of the food when he would go out to eat.
“I was talking to my wife and I said, ‘Hey, am I crazy, or when you go to restaurants, the food is supposed to be good?’ ” he said.
His wife agreed, so Dietrich went looking for a restaurant to buy. That is how he found Imperial Chinese.
“I was thinking, wow, you know, this kind of food really needs to be out in the communities,” he said.
Dietrich said he acquired the Imperial Chinese Restaurant in March 2023 and bought all four Sushi-Rama restaurants for $150,000 each.
Dietrich has grand plans for the chain, including opening a location in Las Vegas.
“I use 1,000 locations as a nice milestone,” he said. “It’s not a stop point, but a milestone, because I truly believe that there’s room in every market for really good options for food, whether it’s Chinese or other.”
The Imperial Go restaurants will feature design elements tied to Denver, the history of Imperial Chinese and ties to Dietrich himself.
State business records show that Imperial Restaurant Group is a trade name under Jogan Companies Inc., which is owned by Dietrich and was founded in 2021.
In addition to investing in the restaurants, Dietrich was once involved in health care. Jogan Companies also owns Jogan Health LLC.
A 2022 Denver7 investigation reported that the health care company struggled to pay employees after receiving $72 million in COVID relief funds from the state to provide vaccinations to the public.
Dietrich disputes claims made in the report and in December 2022 filed a lawsuit against the station and the reporter for defamation. The Denver Post is a content-sharing partner of Denver7 and was also named in Dietrich’s initial complaint.
The case is active in the appeals court, according to Arapahoe County court records.
Court records showed the district court dismissed the case finding that Jogan Health failed to demonstrate a reasonable likelihood of prevailing at trial. Jogan Health and Dietrich are appealing the decision to dismiss the case and the final judgments for attorney fees and costs.
“I’ve taken a lot of personal heat over this,” Dietrich said.
Dietrich said most of the $72 million went to payroll as their labor costs were “astronomical.”
Jogan Health is still an active business but has winded down its operations, according to Dietrich. The business is still resolving open payment issues, he said.
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