It’s been more than a year since Denver said goodbye to the 12-year-old LoHi SteakBar at the corner of 32nd Ave. and Tejon Street.
But this weekend, the lights will turn back on in the corner building, and the neighborhood will once again have a new home for happy hour, brunch and dinner. Jacques, Denver’s latest French bistro, is making its debut with its first dinner service starting at 5 p.m. on Friday.
“It’s a strange feeling when you put something on paper, and here we are two years later standing inside the vision,” said co-owner Simon Rochez.
Jacques, named after Rochez’s late father, is his take on a modern, more casual French restaurant. “I wanted to break the mold of what most people think about French restaurants,” Rochez added. “There’s no white tablecloths, the waiters aren’t in suits and ties, and there’s not this overall posh feeling.” Instead, there are vintage Playboy covers and photos of Brigitte Bardot, a French pop culture icon, on the wall.
Rochez, who grew up in the French Alps, has a seasoned career in the hospitality industry, helping open the Four Seasons Hotel Denver and its rooftop restaurant, Edge, as well as Le Bilboquet’s first Denver restaurant in Cherry Creek. It was there that he met his Jaques co-owners, Nicholas Dalton and William Steck. Steck is the restaurant’s CFO and Dalton, who worked at Brasserie Brixton prior, is the executive chef.
“It’s like a second marriage,” Rochez said of the partnership.
Dalton wants to have fun with traditional French dishes in the kitchen. He plans to serve a family-style Bouillabaisse, a traditional French fish stew, with a whole baguette for dipping. The menu will also have its own potato section with bites like loaded baked potato croquettes, and small bites for happy hour, including tinned fish and fresh-baked baguettes.
“I want everyone to be breaking bread together,” Dalton said.
Around 60 percent of the wine list will be sourced from France, and there will be a rotating list of playful cocktails, like the lychee Parisian martini with pear and rose water or the Moulin Rouge, a tequila-based cocktail with dragonfruit syrup and Hawaiian black salt on the rim.
Once the restaurant has dinner service down, it will expand hours to include brunch on the weekends and happy hour.
Next door, the trio plans to eventually open a late-night bar or private dining event space. The bar, dubbed Boîte de Jus (juice box in French), will replace LoHi SteakBar’s old coffee shop, LoHi Local. It’s decorated with murals by artist Chris Haven, reminiscent of French street graffiti, like an image of the Pink Panther next to the Michelin man and another Brigitte Bardot portrait.
“A lot of French restaurants I’ve visited in Paris and Montreal often have a bottle shop or wine bar next door that has a little bit more of a casual, pop-in-pop-out vibe, where you can get a snack before dinner, so that’s kind of what we’re going for,” Dalton said.
3200 Tejon St., Denver; Open Wed.-Sun. from 5-10 p.m.; jacqueslohi.com