Six months after shuttering Bistro LeRoux, a French fine-dining restaurant on the 16th Street Mall, restaurateur Lon Symensma has closed his YumCha Dumpling & Noodle Bar next door.
“It is with a heavy heart,” the restaurant, at 1520 16th St. Mall, wrote on Instagram, before saying the three-year-old restaurant has closed. “Thank you all for all of your loyalty and support.”
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The closure doesn’t come as a surprise, as Symensma told The Denver Post last July when he closed Bistro LeRoux, 1510 16th St. Mall, that “Downtown Denver went from a thriving market, where there was tons of foot traffic and great walk-in business to a no man’s land with high taxes, high rent and very little return on what you’re paying for.
“You have a greater chance of success by not being in downtown Denver,” he added at the time.
A multi-year construction project, which is expected to be completed this year, has made it difficult for businesses over the past few years, while recent violence on the mall hasn’t helped.
But in the meantime, Symensma, who also owns ChoLon (with one location on the 16th Street Mall and one near Sloan’s Lake) and Gusto (in Sloan’s Lake), opened a second location of YumCha late last year in Denver’s Central Park neighborhood; the location, 10195 E. 29th Drive, had been a third outlet of ChoLon before the changeover.