It’s harder than ever to own a restaurant in Colorado. These businesses are up to the challenge
DENVER — It was just barely before 2 p.m. on Thursday when Jantier Fennell sold out of everything. Catfish, links, candied yams — gone an hour and a half before her official closing time.
“People are saying that I have the best catfish in Colorado, and I’m trying to keep up with the people, but I apologize, I’m sold out!” Fennell said, standing beside her food trailer, J7’s Kitchen, parked at the King Soopers on the corner of Chambers Road and Mississippi Avenue.
Fennell has been running J7’s Kitchen since the summer of 2021. Her goal is to open a Southern soul food restaurant in Aurora, but financial setbacks have kept that dream out of reach.
Fennell was involved in a crash last year that damaged the trailer, resulting in an $8,000 repair, sidelining her operation.
“It took me a while to get back out here, trying to get the money — but it’s going well right now,” Fennell said. “The vision I have is a five-star restaurant here in Aurora. I’m setting the bar high for sure.”
In Colorado, the path to owning a restaurant rarely starts with a restaurant. For many entrepreneurs, the journey starts with the food truck, food cart or food trailer — a stepping stone towards their brick-and-mortar culinary aspirations.
Opening a restaurant in Colorado is no easy feat; up to 60% of restaurants fail in year one. With monthly leases, labor and food prices all considered, the average profit margin for the restaurant business is 3%.
That doesn’t mean a mobile business is easy either. To open a food truck in Colorado, business owners must have multiple licenses and permits to even start selling food. In a process that can range from a couple of months to sometimes over a year, business owners must obtain a business license, a mobile food facility permit, a public health permit, a food seller’s permit and a food handler's license before they can start serving customers.
Eden Smith, owner of Wayward Bastards Kitchen, bought his food cart in December 2024. Smith decided to buy some add-ons to expand his menu offerings: a griddle, deep fryer and more added on an extra $3,000, bringing the cost of his brand new cart up to $10,000.
If you wanted to buy a mobile food vehicle in Colorado through Mobile Food Alliance — a mobile food vehicle seller — prices vary for used vehicles. A used hot dog food cart goes for $9,000, while a fully stocked, pre-owned food trailer with a commercial kitchen goes for $210,000.
Opening a brick-and-mortar restaurant is even pricier and can range anywhere from $150,000 to more than $1 million.
Smith sells gourmet hot dogs and international street food dishes, stemming from his lifelong love of travel that’s led him to cook in 25 countries.
“I’ve worked in almost every element of hospitality and ideally, having a gastropub is what I want to do,” Smith said. For now, he’s operating out of a food cart since a truck was out of the budget.
“Trucks are ridiculously expensive out here.”
Smith faced challenges even to get his food cart up and running. After filing the necessary documents and requirements for his food cart, he didn’t receive approval until nine months later.
The Colorado General Assembly enacted House Bill 25-1295 at the start of 2026, which makes mobile food businesses flexible in where they can serve. Before this bill, Smith could only serve food in Englewood since he’s licensed there. If he wanted to operate in Denver , he’d have to go through Denver’s own licensing process — paying extra fees, going through inspections — since Denver had its own policies.
The new bill allows businesses to legally operate in all counties in Colorado as long as they’re up to date with inspections and have all the paperwork.
On a typical day, both Smith and Fennell start by going to their commissary kitchens. In these rental spaces, local businesses will prepare big batches of sauce, cut vegetables or store dried goods. Chefs also come here to dispose of oil and refill on water. Commissary kitchens charge by the hour, or monthly, and can range from $300 to $4,000 a month based on needs and usage.
These spaces are essential to mobile food businesses — they provide space that otherwise wouldn’t be accessible while chefs are out in the field. It serves as a home base, a necessary purchase.
“There’s so much you don’t know at first. I didn’t know I needed a commissary kitchen, but that’s where I go to drop off my trash, dump my oil, get fresh water so I can keep doing what I’m doing,” Fennell said.
After prepping for the day, Smith and Fennell arrive at the locations that they’ve agreed upon with other businesses, or the city, in order to sell food. Fennell operates in an Aurora parking lot of a heavily trafficked plaza — blocks away from I-225 — that includes businesses like Taco Bell and King Soopers.
Smith developed a relationship with Zymos Brewing after showing up for an event and now regularly operates out of their parking lot. Smith sets up shop right outside the brewery around 3 p.m., pulling out pots, pans, napkins and jugs of water from his blue Mazda, while setting up his cart.
By 4 p.m., he’s grilling hot dogs for the evening patrons at the brewery before he heads to downtown Littleton to continue his operation.
“I haven’t really turned a profit with my cart yet, but it’s paying all of its own bills. Having run kitchens before, I know how rare that is,” Smith said.
Long Nguyen, owner of Saigon Noodle Club, previously opened a food truck called Pho King Rapidos during the pandemic with his wife, Shauna Seaman, a bold move for a self-starting business. The food truck sold Vietnamese-inspired fare and gained a lot of buzz in the city.
“That was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. You’re essentially loading up a mobile kitchen, opening a restaurant, running service, packing it up, going back to your commissary, cleaning up and doing it all over again,” Nguyen said.
Nguyen was successful enough to move over to Avanti Food Hall in Denver, an endeavor that was eye-opening to how difficult it can be to obtain a restaurant.
“We wanted to be sustainable versus just signing the dotted line on the first thing that opens up. A lot of small businesses fall into that,” Nguyen said.
The stint at Avanti lasted for about a year before Nguyen made a transition.
“Avanti was a learning experience in itself. We were used to going to different areas, having people come see us,” Nguyen said. “All of a sudden, we’re in this food hall that’s more drink-focused and the clientele wasn’t as adventurous in trying our food.”
While Nguyen acknowledged he could’ve cut corners to make food cheaper and to earn more profits, he’s steadfast in his dedication to his cooking: “If you wouldn’t feed this to your family, it shouldn’t go out.”
After Avanti, Nguyen said they looked for a brick-and-mortar, but with inflation and market rates, it was “very challenging.” At the time that Nguyen was looking for a space, he said rates in Denver were up to $35 to $42 per square foot, making it difficult to find a place within their budget.
Last year, the couple opened Saigon Noodle Club inside Edgewater Public Market, a food hall across the street from Sloan’s Lake and business is trending in the right direction, he said.
But like Smith and Fennel, it's just another stepping stone towards their final goal: a brick-and-mortar restaurant.
“We do it because we put everything we've got into this,” Nguyen said.
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