Westword: Arvada Beer Garden Brings a Park-Like Feel to Dining and Drinking

Westword | Ryan Pachmayer | July 16, 2025

“What we’re doing here is creating a park with a lot of seating and a concession stand, that’s how we try to run it,” says Joe Vostrejs, a founder and partner at City Street Investors, the company that runs the new Arvada Beer Garden, which opened July 7 to large lines and crowds. According to Vostrejs, the team’s goal is to make the restaurant, which is on about an acre of land, feel as much like a public space as possible.

Arvada originally wanted a “pocket park” on the property, notes Vostrejs. But City Street said it needed the entire space, and ended up planning for additional landscaping that included a total of 44 trees and over 1,000 plants, as well as a small park for children. Vostrejs credits his business partner Rod Wagner with the landscaping. “He hand-selected every tree,” says Vostrejs. “He immersed himself in it.”

The Arvada Urban Renewal Authority (AURA) provided $1.6 million towards the project and sold the land to City Street Investors for a discounted price of $270,000; according to Vostrejs, the land might be worth $1 million to 1.5 million. But City Street invested roughly $4 million of its own money in the project. “Without [the city money], it gets harder to make the numbers work,” he says.

AURA selected City Street Investors as its partner for the project; City Street has locations in Lowry, Edgewater and Green Valley Ranch and recently added its Schoolyard location in Denver. The Lowry Beer Garden is the oldest;  opened thirteen years ago. Vostrejs says he's seen children who played at the beer garden grow up and become employees; that's a phenomenon that GM Casey Kirk has noticed as well.

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