{"id":32206,"date":"2023-08-17T21:05:32","date_gmt":"2023-08-18T03:05:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/longtime-downtown-durango-cafe-closes-after-42-years-of-service\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T01:54:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T07:54:17","slug":"longtime-downtown-durango-cafe-closes-after-42-years-of-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/longtime-downtown-durango-cafe-closes-after-42-years-of-service\/","title":{"rendered":"Longtime downtown Durango cafe closes after 42 years of service"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"A
A sign on the front door of Olde Tymer\u2019s Cafe on the corner of 1000 Main Avenue states that business has closed its doors permanently. Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald<\/span>Jerry McBride<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Olde Tymer\u2019s Cafe announced that it closed permanently earlier this month.<\/p>\n

The Durango restaurant, which first opened in 1981, on Aug. 5 put a sign on its door that it had closed.<\/p>\n

Facebook posts by the restaurant showed that ownership was trying to sell off the restaurant\u2019s decorations and merchandise over the last couple weeks. There is also a white sign in the window that reads \u201cPermanently Closed. Thank you all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Owner Mark Cavalli said the restaurant closed because of building renovations costs, labor and staffing issues. He also said the restaurant lost much of its original clientele.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s got some big problems inside this week that need to get taken care of, like the floors need to be remodeled. The floors are rotting a little bit, the hood vents are too small, and the swamp coolers are too small to keep it cool in the summer,\u201d Cavalli said.<\/p>\n

Since taking over the business in November 2021, Cavalli estimates that he invested $50,000 into the restaurant, including a new $8,000 awning and new gas lines.<\/p>\n

Cavalli made it clear he wasn\u2019t passing blame onto the building owners, as it is the responsibility of the tenant to keep the place up inside the building, saying that the building was just aging after years of use.<\/p>\n

Inflationary costs and increased labor costs also hurt the restaurant, but Cavalli said his employees deserved to be paid a lot more than just $13 per hour.<\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t keep looking at grown adults and tell them to try and live off that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"Olde
Olde Tymer\u2019s Cafe on the corner of 1000 Main Avenue has closed its doors permanently. Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald<\/span>Jerry McBride<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

He said restaurant costs skyrocketed 60% because of inflation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t a surprise that business closed, but it\u2019s really sad because that business has been in downtown for decades,\u201d said Business Improvement District Executive Director Tim Walsworth.<\/p>\n

Walsworth said he had been following Olde Tymers\u2019 social media posts, and it appeared things weren\u2019t going well for the last couple of months.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody\u2019s gone to Olde Tymer\u2019s at one time or another and we\u2019re going to miss them,\u201d he said. \u201cNow the focus turns to OK, what business could move into that space right there at 10th and Main? That\u2019s a prime corner we\u2019d like that not to stay empty for too long.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cavalli said he does plan to open another restaurant in downtown Durango, but didn\u2019t disclose a location because he is still working out a lease.<\/p>\n

The new restaurant will be a bistro that will serve some of Olde Tymer\u2019s favorites, such as burgers, zucchini sticks and fish n\u2019 chips. However, Cavalli said that he would like separate the new restaurant from Olde Tymer\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m calling it affordable elegance at the Bistro, where everything is going to look really nice, the plates are going to look really nice, the food is going to be really good. But it\u2019s going to be affordable,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be a place where for $20 to $25, you can get a nice meal and a beer or a glass of wine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cavalli said that Olde Tymer\u2019s meant a great deal to Durango and to him.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy family and I tried and gave our best. We even sank our own personal paychecks into the business,\u201d he said, \u201cbut it was time to let the old girl go.\u201d<\/p>\n

tbrown@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

building renovations, labor and staffing issues put Old Tymer\u2019s out of business<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32207,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[431,1671,314,28,3593],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-32206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-business-general","tag-business-improvement-district","tag-downtown-durango","tag-headlines","tag-restaurants-dgo-nav"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32206"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32206\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81712,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32206\/revisions\/81712"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32206"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=32206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}