By John LaConte, Vail Daily
A proposed redesign of Vail Village’s Red Lion building does contain a restaurant, but that establishment won’t be the Red Lion, say the current owners.
The plan currently making its way through Vail’s design and review board proposes to retool the restaurant space in a way that will contain less than half of the current establishment’s total square footage, and reorient it so the restaurant patio no longer faces Bridge Street, but Hanson Ranch Road instead. High-end retail space is then expected to occupy the Bridge Street-facing part of the building that the restaurant is now in, according to the plan.
The Red Lion Restaurant’s owners aren’t amenable to the changes, says co-owner Rod Linafelter, and since Linafelter’s group also has the rights to the restaurant’s name, they say whatever comes to occupy that space won’t be the Red Lion.
Linafelter said the smaller restaurant space won’t allow for as many guests, the new patio orientation won’t get as much sunlight, and the move away from Bridge Street toward Hansen Ranch Road won’t attract as much walk-by traffic.
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