New Brewery, Restaurant Opens In Former Stapleton Airport Control Tower

The air traffic control tower that used to guide planes in and out of Stapleton International Airport on Denver’s east side is once again home to a retail establishment focused on bringing food and drink together with entertainment. 

The aviation-themed FlyteCo brewery and restaurant opened last month and is offering tours of the tower, which protrudes from the Central Park neighborhood, a master-planned community built on what used to be the airport. The same spot was home to a Punch Bowl Social location for a couple of years before the pandemic caused the chain to close several locations.

The tower is also illustrative of how some retailers are making their spaces more experiential. FlyteCo Tower has a full 18-hole putt-putt course, two bowling alleys and an arcade to accompany its food and drink options. FlyteCo co-founder Morgan O'Sullivan said he is trying to make the 20K SF brewpub at 3120 Uinta St. a centerpiece in the growing community. 

“When we got the opportunity to take over this building, it just made sense not only to embrace the tower, but also to celebrate the aviation heritage that is so rich in this neighborhood,” O’Sullivan said. 

FlyteCo offers tours of the 11-story tower for $10 per person. Internet companies like Starry and Verso also lease space for their equipment in the tower to provide internet service to the surrounding neighborhood. 

O’Sullivan said FlyteCo has worked to preserve the history of Stapleton Airport, down to minute details. For example, handrails that guide visitors to the scenic top floor are painted in the same aquamarine shade the airport used as an accent color. To get to the restaurant, patrons have to walk on Stapleton Airport’s old Runway 17, which was the magnetic heading of the original south-facing runway.

Stapleton Airport’s history is also alive and well in the restaurant itself. FlyteCo donates a portion of its profits to the neighboring Wings Over the Rockies Air & Space Museum, and in return the museum lends the restaurant exhibits like the Vultee BC-3 airplane and the full-scale Wright Flyer that is in the restaurant today. O’Sullivan said the museum has earmarked a couple of other exhibits to loan FlyteCo, and the company is looking for space to store them. 

Bringing Stapleton Airport’s history into the modern era has proved challenging in some respects, O’Sullivan said. For example, the elevator shaft in the air traffic control tower only reaches the third floor. O’Sullivan said the company could extend it in the future, but it is cost-prohibitive because of supply chain issues surrounding the mechanical and electrical equipment. 

“There's so many people that live in this neighborhood now that don't have memories of what it was like before it was suburbia,” O’Sullivan said. “I think that sense of place is important now more than ever, as we see historical neighborhoods get replaced by slot homes and whatnot.”