The Building at 7401 East First Avenue Almost Became a Classroom. Instead, Lowry Got Its Bar Back.

For the better part of two years, the corner of the Lowry Town Center where locals used to catch a game and a band sat behind boarded windows. RVs camped on the north side of the property for eight months. Vagrants broke in more than once. The building that had hosted Big Head Todd & The Monsters and B.B. King in its basement venue was, by the accounts of neighbors who watched it happen, an eyesore in the middle of the neighborhood's own front yard.

What almost replaced it might surprise people who now walk in for a burger and a show.

The Renovation That Almost Wasn't

When Dr. Jacquelyn Glenn, a local general surgeon, bought the shuttered Tavern Lowry and Soiled Dove property for $3.5 million in October 2025, her first plan for the main floor was not a restaurant at all. According to reporting from BusinessDen at the time of the sale, the initial concept called for converting that upper level into classrooms and a recording studio for a music school, with a small café attached, and keeping live concerts running only in the basement space below.

That plan changed. Glenn kept the bar and restaurant concept on the main floor and gave it a name that spells out exactly what she was going for: Rising Phoenix. It is a detail easy to miss if you only clocked the reopening headlines, but for anyone who lives near the Town Center, it means the building's fate was genuinely undecided for a while. Lowry could have ended up with a music academy on that corner instead of the gathering spot residents had been asking for.

The physical bones stayed the same. No walls came down and none went up. The boomerang-shaped bar, the booths, the layout from the Tavern days are all still there, just refinished with new tables, chairs, upholstery, and beer taps across all three bars. A backstage restroom for musicians got added to the basement venue, something the original 2006 build had somehow never included.

What Chef D Put on the Menu

The kitchen belongs to Daniel "Chef D" Young, who spent 18 years as the private chef for Denver Nuggets players and has cooked for figures ranging from businessman John Malone to former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. According to Westword's reporting, Prince once called Young at 4 a.m. and asked him to cook for his entourage, a story Young has told in interviews about his years working outside the public eye.

Rising Phoenix is his return to running his own room. The menu leans American bar food: a Burger Phoenix built on ground brisket with sautéed mushrooms and aged cheddar, sandwiches named for musicians including a Stevie Nicks with roasted turkey and the usual club fixings, Jamaican beef sliders layered with jerk-marinated beef and goat cheese, plus pastas, cast-iron skillets, salads, and pizza. The restaurant soft-opened June 19, 2026, running 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday during its early months, and expanded toward daily service as the downstairs venue came online, adding a breakfast buffet along the way.

Glenn described the goal in a statement to Westword after the venue's grand opening:

"This project has never been about reopening a venue. It has been about restoring a place where people connect, celebrate, and belong. As we listened to our neighbors, it became clear they weren't just missing the music, they were missing the experience."

The Room Downstairs Never Really Changed

The basement space now goes by The Dove Underground, and Glenn has a personal history with it that predates the purchase. She played bass there as a performer long before she ever considered buying the building. The room still seats 300 in a cabaret-style layout, with no seat more than 45 feet from the stage, the same acoustic footprint that made the old Soiled Dove Underground a favorite among touring musicians for two decades.

What did change is the equipment. A new sound system from local company Listen Up went in, along with new lighting and the new green room bathroom. Outside, crews poured a curved concrete stage on the patio's north side, with a canopy planned to stretch from the building to the brick wall along the west end.

After two music previews, the venue held its full grand opening on August 15, 2026, with Hazel Miller headlining, a nod to the artist who was a fixture at the old Dove for years. Talent buyers Jesse Wehling and Patricia Duncan are curating the touring and local music calendar, while comedian Terri Barton Gregg books the comedy nights. The stated range covers rock, folk, comedy, karaoke, and poetry. If you're checking the calendar this week, Denver jazz mainstays Dotsero are booked for September 5 at 9 p.m., a sign the room is already running a real weekly schedule rather than just marquee events.

Denver Now Has Two Soiled Doves

Here is where it gets confusing if a friend from another part of town mentions catching a show at "the Dove."

Frank Schultz opened the original Soiled Dove in LoDo back in 1997 and built the Lowry version from the ground up in 2006 after moving his Tavern Hospitality Group empire east. He lost that Lowry building when the company broke apart amid what neighborhood reporting described as family ownership strife and unpaid taxes, and the venue went dark in May 2024.

Schultz didn't stop booking bands. He held onto Chopper's Sports Grill at 80 South Madison Street in Cherry Creek North, a bar he'd owned since 2015, and this year added a sound system and stage there. The Railbenders played the first show on May 9, 2026, with an Opie Gone Bad reunion the following week. Schultz has been direct about the priorities at the new room, describing it as a sports bar first and a music venue second, with four to six ticketed shows planned per month and nothing scheduled against Nuggets playoff games. Later summer bookings included the Samples on July 31 and Paizley Park on August 8.

The naming overlap has not gone smoothly. Schultz let the original Soiled Dove trademark lapse but argues his decades of use should keep a second Dove out of Lowry. Glenn's team has registered the Dove Underground name federally and considers the matter settled on their end, even as Schultz has raised the possibility of a cease-and-desist letter.

Why the Split Doesn't Actually Matter to Lowry

None of the trademark back-and-forth changes what actually reopened in this neighborhood. The room with the acoustics people talk about, the address everyone already knows, and the 300-seat layout that made the old Dove worth the drive never left Lowry Town Center. What Cherry Creek North got is a different room in a different building with a different set of priorities built around a sports bar's schedule.

The half-mile stretch between the Town Center and Hangar 2 kept moving during the two years the corner sat vacant. North County kept serving Baja-style tacos, Café Mercato kept its Italian menu going, Woodgrain Bagels kept rolling Montreal-style bagels, and the Lowry Beer Garden kept its 16 taps flowing. Baekga, chef Sean Baek and his wife Mina Kim's Korean spot, has been serving galbi and banchan in the Town Center since spring 2024, right through the vacancy next door. None of that dining scene needed the corner to reopen. But the neighborhood's gathering spot, the one with a stage and a bar under one roof, does feel different with people back in it.

If you're the kind of Lowry resident who used to catch a show downstairs before heading up for a late dinner, that combination is what's back, not a brand name being fought over across town.

Stories like this one are part of what makes tracking a neighborhood closely worthwhile, whether you're deciding where to grab dinner this weekend or wondering what a corner like this one means for the block around it. If you're ever curious what's happening with home values near the Lowry Town Center, or just want a local read on the market, the team at New Perspective Team knows this neighborhood block by block.