Colt & Gray Closes for a Week After Kitchen Walkout

Colt & Gray, the seven year old LoHi staple, will be closed this week. This is not a scheduled staff break nor is it a health department-mandated break, but rather the result of a kitchen walk-out that occurred last Friday. With executive chef and owner Nelson Perkins away on spring break with his young children, the kitchen crew led by chef de cuisine Quincy Cherrett announced mid-day that it would no longer work there. One chef remained, Tim Ashbaugh, and along with members of the front of the house, pulled off dinner service on Friday and Saturday night.

The offal-centric eatery decided to take the five days of dinner service this week and use them to reset, regroup, and train a new back of the house crew. Sister bar Ste. Ellie remains unaffected. Colt & Gray posted a statement on the temporary closure on its Facebook page:

Due to unfortunate circumstances Colt & Gray will be closed for service the week of April 25-29. Our cocktail bar, Ste. Ellie, will remain open if you find yourself in need of a fine cocktail and delicious meal.

We often think of restaurants as investments in food, wine, and the other architectures of service. Sometimes we are reminded that running a restaurant is actually an investment business in our people, and in our guests that grace us with their business, and trust us to feed them an elegant meal at a fair price.

With the unforeseen departure of many members of our kitchen staff, we are taking the opportunity to welcome in a new brigade, to continue to teach the craft, and to provide cooks the opportunity to learn and grow their careers. To our old team: thank you; and we wish you the best of luck in your new endeavors.

Over seven years ago, we opened under the premise that we would throw a rocking dinner party every evening and invite our neighbors into our home. We look forward to continuing that for many more years to come. We look forward to seeing all of our fans when we return to business as usual on May 2.