While El Diablo and Sketch restaurants owner Jesse Morreale goes through a legal smack-down with the City of Denver to get his suddenly shuttered businesses reopened, 150 employees, who haven’t been paid since July 10, need to earn a living.
To help them cover their bills, El Diablo and Sketch chefs Sean Yontz and Brian Laird are setting up shop inside the RockBar kitchen, another Morreale-owned building at 3015 E. Colfax.
RockBar will open tonight, Tuesday, serving menu items from El Diablo and Sketch, and will continue dinner service until the city allows the restaurants’ building at First and Broadway to reopen.
So what’s the beef? The city suddenly deemed the roshe run femmes historic 1906 building, that once housed The First Avenue Hotel, unsafe and in danger of putting the public at risk, a decision that Morreale strongly disputes.
“It’s terrifying what they’ve done and what they’re doing,” Morreale said about the city’s building officials. “Instead of acknowledging their mistake and correcting it right away, they’ve dug in their heels. Now, this has turned into a character assination campaign against me.”
A request for comment from Mayor Michael Hancock’s office was not answered Tuesday morning.
Morreale bought the historic building four years ago when it had been abandoned and neglected for years. After a myriad construction gymnastics as is typical in a 100-plus-year-old building, Morreale received a temporary certificate of occupancy with the agreement to achieve other repairs within 18 months of opening.
Morreale first opened BodyLab, a fitness studio, in February of 2oo9, Sketch restaurant and wine bar in April 2009 and El Diablo in August of 2010.
The building owner said he was frequently in touch with city officials to make sure a permanent certificate of occupancy was in the works. Meanwhile, Denver’s mayor and administration changed, and the city inspector who originally deemed the building safe for the public was no longer in the job.
“I met (with the new team) within the last three or four months,” Morreale said. “We had done everything we needed to do. The building is not unsafe. Is The Brown Palace unsafe? It was built the same year by the same architect. What about the Oxford Hotel? There is no public safety issue with my building.”
Morreale, who is now represented by former city attorney David Fine, has turned his full attention to getting his businesses back open and putting his employees back to work.
RockBar will post donation jars throughout the nightclub to support the displaced employees, and part of sales will also go to the workers. There’s also an on-line petition at www.saveeldiabloandsketch.com.
“I’ve got to figure out how to take care of these people,” Morreale said.
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