In early September, Troy Guard walked a Westword reporter through a dining room still wrapped in plastic sheeting and loud with saws and drills. "I'm a glutton for punishment," he said. Two years earlier the restaurateur had moved to Houston, pointing to Denver's high operating costs and slow city approvals. Now he is building G&G Surf Club on East Union Avenue, a short drive from most Greenwood Village driveways.
The space he is building in already cost one company a fortune, and another restaurant had moved out of the property before that. A few miles south, at Belleview and Ulster, a developer has razed a 1979 shopping center and is rebuilding it around a new set of restaurants. Both projects sit in the City and County of Denver, just over the Greenwood Village line. Both depend on landlords and developers putting together terms an experienced operator would accept.
A Space That Cost Someone Else $10 Million
G&G Surf Club is going into 9,000 square feet at 8100 E. Union Ave., in the Penterra Plaza building. The space was built out for Golden Oak, an upscale restaurant from Oak View Group, the venue hospitality company that moved its headquarters to Denver in 2023. Golden Oak was supposed to open in early 2025 and serve as a training ground for the company's chefs. Sources told BusinessDen the firm spent more than $10 million on the build-out. The restaurant never opened. Westword adds that the property had been without a restaurant for years after McCormick & Schmick's left.
Guard had looked at the building before. He told the Denver Post and BusinessDen that he talked with the landlord about a Guard and Grace there five years ago, but the numbers didn't work. Then the landlord called back. He signed a 15-year lease with Edgewood REIT and said he got a great deal, without sharing specifics. He also said plainly that the deal was the reason he took it.
"I'm not really excited about the way Denver is right now, but we're banking on it getting better and these really-hard-to-say-no-to opportunities. If this were a regular opportunity I wouldn't have done it."
That quote comes from June, when Guard also said his Denver restaurants were down 15% across the board. He made an exception for the south side. His Los Chingones has been at Belleview Station for nine years and is outperforming his RiNo location, a reversal since the pandemic. "To me, DTC is way stronger than downtown," he said.
The restaurant is a seafood-focused take on his flagship steakhouse. It will serve steaks, salads and pastas alongside fish dishes Guard ties to growing up in Hawaii, Seattle and San Diego. Westword's September visit described a large wraparound bar with a lounge, a raw bar, a sushi bar, an open kitchen, a private dining room, about 225 indoor seats and two large patios. That report put the space at 8,500 square feet, slightly smaller than the June figure.
The opening date has slipped. In June the target was "by Nov. 1." By mid-September the restaurant was aiming for October or November. As of early October, the G&G Surf Club site still offers only an email sign-up for opening news, with no menu, hours or reservations.
Thirteen Acres at Belleview and Ulster, Starting Over
The second project is a full rebuild. Marina Square, on the northeast corner of Belleview Avenue and Ulster Street, opened in 1979 and was one of the Tech Center's first shopping and social destinations. Its tenants included Montaldo's, a high-end women's clothing store, and a restaurant called Marina Landing. Golftec opened its very first storefront there in 1995 and has since grown to more than 250 locations worldwide.
Peter Culshaw, who runs Shea Properties' Colorado operations, told the Denver Post that tenants left over time and that the rest closed after COVID hit, which is when Shea decided to demolish. The company bought the property for $16.8 million in 2003. It took down the roughly 45-year-old, 94,000-square-foot center and broke ground in summer 2025 on a redevelopment Culshaw put at more than $200 million. The new project is called On The Square, and Denver's District 4 council office lists it among its development projects, which places the site in Denver.
Culshaw lives about five miles west of the site, and he described the goal in terms of his own driving habits.
"I can drive to Cherry Creek, but it's a half an hour drive, and we don't really want to go down there and mess with the parking. And the idea is to bring Cherry Creek sizzle to the Tech Center, available for folks living and working here."
The first phase includes 481 apartments at Eclipse On The Square. A 68-foot sculpture of an eclipse will anchor a public plaza surrounded by native landscaping, restaurants, shops and fitness studios. Reports differ on the retail space: public records cited by the Denver Post in October 2025 showed 32,000 square feet, and an August 2026 report puts it at about 40,000. As of August 2026, the reported tenants were:
- Barcelona Wine Bar, a Spanish and Mediterranean tapas restaurant. WhatNow reported the address as 8101 E. Belleview Ave. and a 2027 opening. It will be the chain's second Denver location after 2900 Larimer St. in RiNo, with about 4,000 square feet inside and two patios of about 1,000 square feet each. Colorado's August 2026 list of approved liquor licenses gives a more exact address, 8107 E. Belleview Ave., Suite 100, Denver, with licenses issued to Barcelona Denver South, LLC on August 25, 2026.
- The Coastal Service, a seafood and oyster bar from Sean Huggard's Shucking Good Hospitality. It is a sibling to Blue Island Oyster Bar and Seafood, inspired by Huggard's years cooking on Nantucket, and is expected to open in early 2027.
- Golftec, coming back to the site where it started.
- Sweetgreen, Mendocino Farms, PopUp Bagels, Face Foundrié, solidcore and First Interstate Bank, all named in the same August tenant list.
Shea's own project page still lists its tenants as TBA, so this list comes from news reports rather than the developer's directory. On timing, Culshaw said in October 2025 that he hoped the retail tenants would be open about a year later, and the August report said On The Square would begin opening in late 2026.
Which Side of the Line Each Address Sits On
The Tech Center crosses city limits, so "DTC" on a menu says nothing about which city the restaurant is in. Here is where each place in this post stands as of October 6, 2026.
| Restaurant | Address | City | Status as of early October 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| G&G Surf Club | 8100 E. Union Ave. | Denver | Under construction in September; aiming for October or November |
| Barcelona Wine Bar | 8107 E. Belleview Ave., Ste. 100, On The Square | Denver | Liquor license issued Aug. 25; planned for 2027 |
| The Coastal Service | On The Square | Denver | Expected early 2027 |
| Kura Sushi | 8545 E. Arapahoe Rd., Ste. C | Greenwood Village | Liquor license issued Aug. 31; listed as "Coming Soon" |
| Yummy Hot Pot | 8181 E. Arapahoe Rd. | Greenwood Village | Opened this summer |
Inside Greenwood Village, the Changes Come One Storefront at a Time
Inside the city limits, this season's changes are smaller, and most of them sit along Arapahoe Road and the Yosemite and Orchard corridors.
Kura Sushi is the opening to watch. The chain's location page lists 8545 E. Arapahoe Rd., Suite C, as "Coming Soon" with no date. Colorado's list of recently approved liquor licenses shows Kura Sushi USA Inc. at that suite, with a hotel-and-restaurant license and a takeout-and-delivery permit issued August 31, 2026. Its only other Colorado location is in Boulder, which makes Greenwood Village the closest Kura for most of the metro area.
A few doors west, Yummy Hot Pot opened at 8181 E. Arapahoe Rd. this summer. Westword's July 11 roundup listed it without an exact opening day.
The same weeks brought closures. Westword's July roundup listed Tap & Burger at 4910 S. Newport St. and Crave Cookies at 4940 S. Yosemite St., noting that some places on its list may have closed earlier than the month suggests. On East Orchard Road, the restaurant half of Mama Kim at 8745 E. Orchard Rd. had closed by early September. Its day spa is still open. The concept is well known in Malaysia, and the Low family brought it to Denver after their sons came here for school.
The address where Crave Cookies closed is still home to a locally owned business. The Sen Tea House, at the same 4940 S. Yosemite St. address, appeared in Westword's August 2026 openings list. But Westword had already profiled it in February 2025. Alice Ngo and Nhat Pham built it after buying a DTC milk and boba tea shop, and it had soft-opened the previous September.
What the Next Few Months Look Like
Put the dates in order, and the big openings arrive in a predictable sequence.
- This fall. G&G Surf Club is aiming for October or November, and the restaurant hasn't confirmed a date. Kura Sushi has its license and no published opening date.
- Late 2026. On The Square is expected to begin opening, roughly a year after Culshaw first gave that timeline.
- Early 2027. The Coastal Service is expected to open at On The Square.
- 2027. Barcelona Wine Bar's second Denver location is planned to open, with no month announced.
Each of the large projects reuses a site that had already failed once, and each depends on terms an established operator was willing to sign. The Golden Oak build-out sat empty until a landlord offered Guard terms he couldn't turn down. Marina Square emptied out, came down, and is reopening with signed leases from operators who already have a following in RiNo, Cherry Creek and on Nantucket. Of the openings in this post, only Kura Sushi and Yummy Hot Pot have Greenwood Village addresses.
As new restaurants fill sites just beyond the city line, the short drive to dinner becomes part of how buyers see a Greenwood Village address. If you're weighing what that proximity means for a home you own or one you're considering, Rule Properties can walk you through it calmly and in detail. Connect with Ben & Erin for a tailored market valuation.