Punch Bowl Social operated at 3120 Uinta St. from 2017 to 2020. (BusinessDen file)
The onetime air traffic control tower at the former Stapleton International Airport, which was home to Punch Bowl Social for three years, has sold.
Ctrl Tower LLC purchased the building at 3120 N. Uinta St. in Denver for $8 million last week, according to public records.
Vishan Rajkumar Patidar is the manager of the purchasing entity, according to loan paperwork associated with the deal. His LinkedIn profile lists his title as senior business intelligence developer at Denver Public Schools.
Patidar did not respond to a request for comment Monday.
The 164-foot tower attached to a three-story building is one of the most notable signs of the past in the Central Park neighborhood, which was built on the site of Stapleton International Airport. The airport was replaced in 1995 by Denver International Airport.
The building, which sits on a 2-acre lot, was sold by 30 West Pershing LLC, an entity affiliated with Kansas City-based EPR Properties. It purchased it in May 2016 for $1.33 million, records show.
Punch Bowl Social — a Denver-based chain that combines a bar and restaurant with entertainment options like bowling and arcade games — opened in a portion of the building in 2017; it didn’t use the tower itself. The location closed when the pandemic hit.
In June 2020, Punch Bowl’s then-CEO Robert Thompson told BusinessDen that the company wouldn’t reopen the Stapleton restaurant, as well as another location in the Chicago area with the same landlord.
Thompson, who founded Punch Bowl in 2012, resigned his position at the company two months later. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last December.
Punch Bowl had 20 locations up and running and two under construction when the pandemic hit, Thompson previously told BusinessDen. Its website now lists 14 open locations, including the original one at 65 N. Broadway in Denver.
Natural Grocers plans to open a store next to the former control tower.