One of Boulder’s oldest coffee shops, Sidney’s Café, is
closing on New Year’s Eve, continuing a trend of restaurants and other
businesses in downtown Boulder shutting their doors.
Sidney’s co-owner Matthew Kenny, who purchased the
21-year-old coffee shop at 1375 Walnut with his wife in January, told Boulder
Weekly that the main reason for the closure is a continuing disagreement with
their landlord, the W.W. Reynolds Companies.
According to Kenny, a fire
department inspection conducted in October revealed several fire code
violations, including an electrical junction box that is inaccessible because
it is located behind a cabinet. Kenny says Reynolds has repeatedly refused to
pay to relocate the box, an improvement that would cost about $9,000. Instead,
he says, Reynolds wants the owners to dismantle the antique cabinet that is
blocking the box, something that Kenny is not willing to do.
The impasse has
prevented a new lease from being signed before the current one expires on Dec.
31.
“They said that without us being here, it wouldn’t be an
issue,” Kenny says.
Nate Litsey, the Reynolds leasing agent for the café,
counters that according to the existing lease, fire-code improvements are the
tenant’s responsibility. Still, he says Reynolds is willing to work with the
café’s owners to help cover the cost, and that the lease could still end up
being renewed in the next couple of days. He says the junction box issue is not
the driving factor in the situation; it is a question of whether the café’s
owners have the financial wherewithal to continue operating the business.
“They don’t know if they want to stay open or not,” Litsey
says. “We’ll do what we can, but ultimately, it’s their decision.”
“No business wants to go out of business,” Kenny replies,
adding that Reynolds should be responsible for keeping the property up to code.
He says many tenants have left the eight-story building at
1375 Walnut, moving to properties with lower rent and reducing traffic in the
café significantly. According to Kenny, when Litsey asked what he could do to
help the coffee shop stay in business, Kenny told him he could fill the
building with tenants.
Litsey denied that there had been any exodus from the
building. He said a few tenants have left, but not for economic reasons.
Meanwhile, this week Kenny gave his employees two days’
notice instead of two weeks’ worth. He lamented that the café is following in
the footsteps of several other downtown establishments that are closing or have
closed their doors, including Sunflower Organic Dining, the Scotch Corner Pub
and the b.side Lounge. Bart’s CD Cellar is closing in January.
One regular Sidney’s customer compared the loyalty of the
café’s patrons to that seen on the television show Cheers.
Kenny agrees, adding, “There seems to be so little
motivation to keep these small businesses downtown, these institutions.”
