The site of the shuttered El Rancho restaurant near Evergreen has been sold to QuikTrip, the Tulsa-based chain that plans to build a gas station there.
The existing building, however, could be moved before that happens.
QuikTrip paid $6.17 million last week, according to public records, to buy the restaurant property at 29260 Hwy. 40, as well as the former FirstBank branch next to it.
The two parcels add up to an even five acres, according to Jefferson County records, making the deal worth about $28 a square foot for the land.
QuikTrip has been in expansion mode locally since 2019, when the company announced it intended to enter the Denver market. An Aurora location that opened this month was the company’s 17th in Colorado.
Although new limits on gas station development that Denver implemented this month dealt a blow to the company, QuikTrip has always targeted the broader region, meaning it still has plenty of spots to pursue.
The El Rancho restaurant sits at a busy exit along Interstate 70. Its building was completed in 1947, and an eatery opened there the following year, according to Westword. Over the years, it became a landmark for tourists.
In the summer of 2022, however, the property hit the market ahead of a scheduled foreclosure sale. That September, the restaurant occupying it filed for bankruptcy. In November, developers Travis McAfoos and Jack Buchanan bought the property and brought in Frank Bonanno, the prominent Denver chef, to reboot the restaurant.
But Bonanno was out by the spring of 2024, and the restaurant later closed.
Plans for a QuikTrip at the site were filed with Jefferson County last August. The planned gas station is opposed by some nearby residents who object to its size and worry about losing the restaurant building.
Buchanan, however, hopes to move the building to land he owns across the street. He wants to build a hotel and other restaurants around it.
“We’ve got some public approvals we got to get in order to do that,” he told BusinessDen Wednesday.
One of those desired approvals involves changing the fire district the property across the street is in. A meeting about that was held earlier this month.
“El Rancho is right now about 22,000 square feet,” Buchanan said at that meeting, according to the local Canyon Courier newspaper. “By moving it, we think we can keep it historic, but make it more efficient. It will still be about 14,000 square feet, and we’ll rebuild the kitchen. It will not be a new building, but it will be in a lot better shape than it is today.”
Buchanan declined to discuss if his deal with QuikTrip established a deadline for the move to occur. QuikTrip didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Story via BusinessDen
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