Lorenzo Nuñez is just ready to start serving guests again.
“Quite a bit has happened over the last couple of years. Some of it’s self-inflicted and some of it’s unfortunate circumstances with the fire,” he told BusinessDen. “But things happen for a reason. There’s something to learn from everything.”
The owner of Mexican eatery El Chingon Bistro is preparing to reopen his restaurant in The Source Hotel in RiNo in the coming months. But Nuñez has been on quite the journey to get here.
Nuñez, his mother and executive chef David Lopez, who is also his nephew and business partner, opened El Chingon in Arvada in 2010, later moving it to Tennyson Street in Denver. After outgrowing that spot, he moved the restaurant to LoHi.
But things “never really clicked” at the new 1691 Central St. location, Nuñez said. It was seized by the state for $44,000 in back taxes in May 2024, though Nuñez said he “resolved those right away.”
But the headaches didn’t stop there. In June last year, El Chingon took over at 722 N. Santa Fe Drive, where fellow Mexican spot El Noa Noa had a 45-year run. Then a kitchen fire broke out a week into service and shut Nuñez down.
“It was unbelievable. It was surreal. I couldn’t even process what happened,” Nuñez said of the blaze, which was caused by a decadeslong grease buildup behind the hood. “Luckily nobody was hurt, nobody was injured, which was a huge blessing. But that’s when that depression hits a bit.”
Nuñez initially tried to reopen there, but after liability insurance wouldn’t cover the full cost of the build-out, he began looking elsewhere at the start of the year. He said it would’ve been a six-figure bill to get things up and running again on Santa Fe.
“The mistake I made was carrying (my landlord’s) insurance rather than my own,” he said. That policy was held by the Medina family, who operated El Noa Noa and own the restaurant’s real estate.
“When you’re looking down the barrel of six figures in this economy, we were trying to justify how to make it work,” Nuñez said. “But without having any ownership in the building itself, it didn’t make financial sense to do it.”
As a result, for the past year, the only El Chingon location has been the one that opened in Denver International Airport in 2024. Nuñez doesn’t operate that one, but licenses the name and menu.
He started looking for a new location at the beginning of the year before settling on The Source in RiNo, where he signed a 10-year lease.
Nuñez was represented by Chris Lindgren of Hoff & Leigh commercial real estate in the deal. Andrew Clemens of SRS Real Estate Partners represented The Source Hotel.
“They really are trying to bring some good local talent in the space to coincide with Temaki Den and Safta and Smōk,” Nuñez said of The Source. “I spent some time looking at those spots and just really diving in, and I was impressed. It’s building up and you can feel it.”
When Nuñez opens in the 3,100 square feet this fall, he said the menu will be a pared down version of the “elevated modern” Mexican fare El Chingon is known for.
There will be classics like chicharrones, green enchiladas and carnitas, as well as chile rellenos, Nuñez’s favorite meal from childhood. That recipe has been in his family for over 100 years.
“We didn’t grow up with a ton, and I was the youngest of seven with parents from Mexico City,” he said. “And one of the things Mom always did growing up was she would make our favorite foods. On my birthday, it was a given that we would have chile rellenos.”
For the latest iteration of El Chingon, Nuñez has brought in Josh Beausang as a minority partner. Beausang will focus on the spot’s agave-heavy cocktail menu, he said, which will feature fewer than 10 cocktails changed out seasonally.
“One of the things I wanted to do was to bring on someone from the outside to help with operations and make sure we’re looking at stuff the right way,” Nuñez said. “This has to be different. We have to bring something different to the table.”
Nuñez left a cushy finance job in 2010 to start El Chingon, burned out with the corporate lifestyle. His heart wasn’t in it by the end.
The last few years of El Chingon have felt similar, he added.
“But that’s not to say I’ve lost excitement over there years. It’s just been focusing on a lot of other things and forgetting what got you into it to begin with,” he said. “I’m relieved that we’re moving forward and progressing again.”
