Cherry Cricket to add 100 seats - Denver Business Journal:

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Owner Wynkoop Holdings Inc. whose partners formerly included Denverf Mayor JohnHickenlooper — recently bought part of the restaurant’a building it didn’t already own for $1.13 million to accommodatwe the expansion, according to Denver Countyt real estate records. The propertt is located at East Second Avenue nearClaytob Street. The recently purchased space formerly was occupied by a FastFrameframinhg shop, which relocated to 255 Clayton St. in the district.
Wynkoo p Holdings is adding roughly 100seat — 39 indoor seats and the rest on an outdoor patii — to The Cherry Cricket, and hopews to have the expansion finished before the Cherryu Creek Arts Festival, according to Lee Driscoll, the company’ss president and CEO. The restaurant currently seats 220 The arts festival runsJuly 3-5. The event generally draws 350,000 visitors, according to organizers. we’re seeing waits of over an especially Thursdaythrough Saturday.
We bought the restaurant in 2000, and haven’yt really done anything to change Driscoll said of TheCherry “We’re always scared of doing something inadvertentlgy that would ruin the magic, so we’re trying to do this as simply as we can.” Because of its reasonablyg priced menu and status as a Cherrgy Creek institution, The Cherry Cricket is a winnerf “of the recession according to Denver restaurant consultant John Imbergamo of . The Cherry Cricket’zs menu includes burgers, sandwiches, Mexican food, soups and at prices of roughly $4 to $9.
Imbergamo believese the restaurant alsofaces challenges, from new, nearby competitorsd such as the Earls restaurant chain of Canada, whicj plans to soon open a location at the old Oceanb restaurant site on Columbine Street, and which opened in April on Josephine Street. “Houston’w doesn’t compete with The Cherry Cricket onprice point, but it’s anotheer competitor,” Imbergamo said. Denver-based Wynkoop Holdings is the parent company of a restaurant group that started withthe brewpub. who founded Wynkoop Brewing in 1988 with the lateRusselp Schehrer, put his interest in the parent company in a trusyt after he became mayoe in 2003.
He then sold his interest to a seniorr management groupin 2007. “All the chefs and other senior employeexs have stock inthe company,” Driscoll said. The originalk Cherry Cricket opened asMary Zimmerman’s Bar in 1945 in her a site that’s now Cherry Creekk North’s Sears Auto Center, according to Wynkoop Holdings. Zimmerman builrt The Cherry Cricket’s current location at 2641 E. Second Ave. in the early 1950s. Bernard Duffy, who also once owned downtown Denver’s defunct Duffy’sa Shamrock Restaurant & Bar on Court Place, bough t the Cherry Creek restaurant in the and changed its nameto Duffy’s Cherry Cricket.
Duffy’s improvementws included addinga $2.50 prime rib luncb buffet and the neon sign still located on the frontf of the building. After Duffy retires in 1972, the restaurant had othetr owners, including Elizabeth “Eli” McGuire. During her tenure, the restaurant got a new air-conditioning system and two and the bar wasreplaced twice. Wynkoopl Holdings bought the restaurant aftetr McGuire passed awayin 2000.