When Smashburger opened its 24th Colorado restaurant in Denver’s Lowry neighborhood in 2022, it earned national headlines as the first location to include a bar and cocktail menu.
“This new Smashburger concept sets itself apart from our traditional locations with an elevated dining experience and we are thrilled to bring our first full bar restaurant to our hometown in Denver,” Carl Bachmann, then-president of Smashburger, said in a statement.
But the noxious odors were also elevated at 200 Quebec St., according to a new lawsuit.
“Starting in May 2024, (Smashburger) claimed that ‘sewer odors’ were emanating into the premises from the common areas of the shopping center,” that lawsuit explains.
When the odors were still around come March of this year, Smashburger reportedly withheld rent, then terminated its lease in April and moved out of 200 Quebec St. in May.
Smashburger is being sued by Kimco Realty, owner of the Lowry Town Center shopping center and its former landlord. The Denver-based burger chain is accused of breaching its 10-year lease by closing after just three years and not paying $48,000 in rent this spring.
Kimco claims that Smashburger used the purported sewer odors “as an artificial basis” for abandoning the lease when, in reality, it left 200 Quebec St. because Smashburger’s “business at the premises was not performing as the tenant expected when it signed the lease.”
The landlord’s lawsuit, filed Aug. 20 in Denver District Court, claims that either the sewer odors did not exist or, if they did, they were due to Smashburger’s grease interceptor and changes it made to plumbing. The smell did not come from a common area, according to Kimco.
Spokespeople for Smashburger did not respond to BusinessDen’s requests for comment.
The landlord’s lawyer is Joshua Bugos with the firm Gray Bugos & Schroeder in Littleton.
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