A new group wants to bring back the Mercury Cafe.
After a tumultuous run since the start of 2025, owner Danny Newman is under contract to sell the restaurant building at 2199 California St. in Denver to a group aiming to bring back the space’s bohemian roots.
“We had a lot of mutuals, and as soon as we met these guys, we knew it was the right group for The Merc,” Newman told BusinessDen. “We’re all on the same big mission that we always wanted, which is to both maintain and grow what could happen there. And the amazing part is they have a big team and have a lot of people to help.”
The pending buy will be the first real estate purchase by CoCreate, which runs artsy events and consults on local creative projects. Co-CEOs Dante Dunlap and Mitchell Hoverman, along with Director of Experience Jennifer Mosquera, plan to bring back the original spirit of the spot, which Marilyn Megenity grew into a haven for poets, musicians and dancers after opening in 1975.
“From a business perspective it’s a no-brainer,” said Dunlap, who is a Denver native and the former technical director at the Denver Performing Arts Complex. “There’s a 350-person event space on the top floor, 125 on the bottom floor, a very large luxurious cafe space on the first floor, a massive kitchen, a freight elevator…
“She has amazing bones for a building and it just fits us perfectly,” he added.
The three said they expect the deal to close this winter ahead of a potential opening in early 2027 — but they don’t yet have the cash needed to close.
The group is starting a “very aggressive” capital raise, though they declined to share the target number. The group is also in talks with The Bardo Coffee House to manage a morning café.
“It’s been a community space, and we would love to have the community join us in lifting this old girl back up into orbit,” said Mosquera, who operated the experiential arts venue Pismajic in Lakewood before it closed earlier this year.
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Newman, his wife Christy Kruzick and business partner Austin Gayer bought the restaurant and its 10,000-square-foot building for $2 million in 2021. Newman planned to revive the cafe, then struggled coming out of the pandemic. Those plans changed after he and Kruzick dealt with health issues and the birth of their child shortly after.
That, combined with higher cost of goods, labor and a property tax bill that tripled from $20,000 to $60,000 led Newman to close the space in early 2025. He leased it to lesbian bar The Pearl, which closed this spring.
“We absolutely jumped into this with the big and best of intentions. We wanted to both save and expand something that’s meant so much to us for a big chunk of our lives,” Newman said. “What was able to sustain itself pre-COVID under Marilyn’s rockstar-ness just became really hard without figuring out other ways to grow the business.
“Of course it seems obvious now that we should have jumped on this and done a bunch of things, but our promise to Marilyn and the community was to keep things going as they were, not rocking the boat, keeping events going and everything,” he added.
CoCreate originally set out to lease the space. But after talking it over with Newman, they landed on buying as the best option. It’s been 11 weeks since they first started negotiating the deal – a process that Hoverman described as a “very fast-moving freight train.”
“I think we all obviously would’ve been extremely aligned on a lease, but this really lets them control everything, control their destiny,” Newman said. “A true owner-user is the only way to make this work.”
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