The Edgewater Inn won’t stay closed for long. The classic pizza parlor, opened by Ben and Josephine DiPietro in 1953, reopens on January 4. Later in 2023, the new owners, wife and husband Niya and Grant Gingerich plan to add a patio and bar in the little-used space in the back of the location at 5302 W. 25th Ave. in Denver’s Edgewater neighborhood (per Westword). The Gingerich’s are the former owners of the nearby Local 46, a longtime bar and biergarten.
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“It’s a good marriage of an absolute icon and a piece of heritage that we’re going to be able to keep going,” Local 46 co-founder Grant Gingerich told What Now Denver.
The owners will bring in their expertise from Local 46 to develop the existing backspace while keeping the Edgewater Inn relatively untouched.
“We’re bringing back Bensday,” Gingerich said. “I imagine Ben looking down on us and saying, ‘That’s what we want from Edgewater.’ The goal is to enhance and put our version of the Local off the back. The two things will exist together under one roof.”
Renderings give some idea of the future setting out back: sit belly-up to a horseshoe bar and sip house twists on classic cocktails or hang out on the “barnyard” patio to picnic and play games in natural landscaping separated from the city by an eight-foot-fence.
As to the Edgewater Inn, the Gingerichs will do their best to make a slow transition and a light-touch update.
“Lot of old patrons want to make sure that it’s the place that they know,” Gingerich said. “There’s a fine line between preservation and change. The focus is paying homage to Ben, to keeping the place Ben built.”
The front of house will remain about 1,000 square feet. The patio and back bar spread out over 2,500 square feet. Hours at the Edgewater Inn will be from noon to 10 p.m. Wednesday, Thursday, Sunday and from noon to midnight Friday and Saturday. The Gingerichs will keep the kitchen open “until 10 nightly to provide a fresh and local food option to other restaurant industry folks.” This is just one way that the new owners are trying to keep the old school vibe Edgewater has loved for decades.
“It says it all when a little community renames a block DiPietro Way.”