DENVER — There’s a movement among Denver restaurants to pay their staff a livable wage before tips. It can be a big challenge for small businesses, but the owners Denver7 spoke to say it is possible.

“I was honestly kind of shocked to see how many cafes we have here in Denver, but very few are owned by women. Fewer are owned by folks that speak or represent the culture of where the coffee is coming from,” said Kristin Lacy, co-owner of Convivio Cafe.

When she and her co-owner were starting out, it was important to them to pay their staff minimum wage, even though they are also tipped workers. Lacy remembers the reaction she got from one investor.

“This funder looks back at me and said, ‘How am I supposed to trust you if you’re going to be paying basically $20 an hour to a barista for unskilled work?’” Lacy recalled. “And I said, ‘To be honest with you, if we can’t make that work, then I don’t want to open the restaurant.’”

It hasn’t always been easy. Lacy said many small businesses are suffering through the same challenges of rising food costs, rising rents, utility costs, permits and licensing.

Many Denver restaurants, big and small, offer sub-minimum wage for their tipped workers.

“You have a lot of people in the city who are both workers and consumers. If they experience a pay cut, that creates a vicious circle where people are not going out to eat as much. They may be being evicted,” said Denver City Councilmember Sarah Parady.

The nonprofit One Fair Wage wants to solve that problem. On Wednesday, the group awarded five locally owned restaurants with grant funding to help them find ways to stay profitable while also paying their staff a livable wage.

“It makes workers very vulnerable to have to live on the biases and harassment and whims and moods of customers,” said Saru Jayaraman, co-founder of One Fair Wage.

The money pays for training and assistance in identifying solutions, like adjusting menu prices or finding ways to work with suppliers to cut costs.

Convivio Cafe is one of the recipients, and the owners believe the grant will keep them on the right path.

“The other part that’s important with this minimum wage is having the education and the participation of the community,” said Lacy.

Parady agreed that customers play a role.

“If menu prices were just actually set at what the customer is expected to pay, and tipping becomes more of an extra, that would make things more predictable for everybody,” she said.

One Fair Wage is accepting applications from restaurants that are interested in the training and assistance opportunities. More information can be found on their website.

Tipped workers bill on Polis’ desk

Meanwhile, Colorado lawmakers are trying to provide relief to restaurants by adjusting pay for tipped employees.

Tipped workers can make a base wage less than minimum wage because tips are meant to make up for that difference, if not exceed it. If tips are low, those workers would still legally need to be compensated enough to reach the overall minimum wage of their jurisdiction.

According to House Bill 25-1208 sponsor Rep. Alex Valdez, D-Denver, when state lawmakers allowed cities and counties to set higher local minimum wages in 2019, they did not address the minimum wage for tipped workers. Instead, that number is determined by a “tip offset” that is set at $3.02 under the Colorado Constitution.

Colorado’s minimum wage is $14.81 an hour. Its tipped minimum wage is that number minus the tip offset of $3.02, which comes to $11.79 an hour. Denver’s minimum wage is $18.81 an hour, meaning the tipped minimum wage is $15.79.

Valdez called the preset tip offset a “mistake” that is leading to inflated payrolls, which contribute to restaurant closures.

Previous coverage of HB25-1208:

As introduced, HB25-1208 would have required the $11.79 tipped minimum wage statewide, raising the tip offset in cities like Denver, Boulder and Edgewater, which have raised their overall minimum wages. However, the bill was amended in the legislature to instead allow local governments with a minimum wage higher than the state’s to increase the tip offset, if they so please. Governments, however, cannot impose a tip offset that would make tipped employees earn less than the state minimum wage minus $3.02 ($11.79 an hour).
Local governments would be allowed to adjust their tip offset beginning Jan. 1, 2026.

Supporters say adjusting the tip offset would provide more financial flexibility that could save more restaurants from shutting down and allow more equitable pay for “back of house” workers like cooks and dishwashers, who typically make less than servers, hosts and bartenders. Critics, however, say it would cost thousands of tipped workers thousands of dollars when it’s already tough to make ends meet. Additionally, they argue there are other ways to address struggling restaurants, such as working to subsidize rising rent or food costs.

The bill passed through the state legislature and was sent to Governor Jared Polis on May 2.

Two and a half years after the vast majority of Denver voters approved an initiative requiring apartment buildings and restaurants to recycle and compost more of their waste, the city’s implementation of that mandate has hit another snag.

City officials, after convening a task force and soliciting input, have proposed ordinance updates that would result in enforcement finally beginning. But the initiative’s chief backer says the changes include too many exemptions from the rules that risk thwarting voters’ intent.

A City Council committee, citing those concerns, decided last week to postpone a vote advancing the changes to the full council.

While the requirements technically have been in place since they were approved in the November 2022 election, city officials have been working to formally implement them since then. Now, they’re recommending some changes and exemptions in an effort to balance the climate-friendly goals of the ordinance with business interests.

“The mayor has been clear on this point. He believes you can be both a climate-friendly city and a business-friendly city, and those are not in conflict,” said Jonathan Wachtel, the deputy executive director of the Denver Office of Climate Action, Sustainability and Resiliency.

But GreenLatinos, an environmental advocacy group whose leader put the “Waste No More” measure on the ballot, says the suggested changes aren’t in line with what voters approved.

“This isn’t what the Denver voters want,” said Ean Tafoya, who was campaign director for the initiative. “Denver voters want action now, not delays.”

Following a presentation by the Office of Climate Action on May 7, Councilwoman Flor Alvidrez raised the concerns from GreenLatinos and asked to postpone the item until May 21.

Under the new recommended city rules, enforcement — which initially was supposed to roll out in phases on long-passed dates — would begin all at once in April 2026.

The voter-approved ordinance, which passed with about 71% of the vote — requires apartments, restaurants, commercial buildings and permitted events to provide recycling and composting services. Construction and demolition projects are also required to separate and recycle all recyclable materials, including concrete, asphalt and scrap metal.

The entities in charge of a property or event are required to pay for the access and pickup of recycling and composting.

The city provides composting and recycling pickup only for single-family homes and residential buildings with up to seven units.

In 2023, the mayor’s office convened a task force to make recommendations on how to implement it. It’s typical for local and state governments to make tweaks to citizen ballot initiatives once they’re approved to ensure they’re pragmatic or enforceable.

But Tafoya says many of the city’s new suggestions weren’t included in the group’s final report.

Under the city’s recommended guidelines, restaurants that bring in less than $2 million in revenue and have 25 or fewer employees would be totally exempt from the requirements. About 16% of the restaurants in Denver fall under those thresholds, said Tim Hoffman, director of policy for the mayor’s office.

That’s one of the biggest points of contention for GreenLatinos, Tafoya said.

“Businesses can be profitable and small businesses and do the right thing with waste diversion,” he said.

The city also suggests construction and demolition sites would be required to divert 50% of the waste generated on their sites away from landfills. Small projects, like construction sites of less than 500 square feet or interior remodels of less than 2,500 square feet, would be exempt. Other exemptions would include projects involving hazardous materials or emergency orders.

Multifamily residential buildings would be able to apply for exemptions for challenges like space constraints and the inability to secure a service provider for the waste.

Several categories, including multifamily residential buildings and special events, would offer exemptions if the property or event produces extremely small amounts of waste. Tafoya said he wants that to be better defined.

Special events drawing fewer than 350 people would also be exempt.

Properties and events would be required to create a compliant waste management plan and put up signage. They would also be susceptible to a fine of up to $999 for failure to comply.

“This is an education-first approach to enforcement,” Wachtel said. “There is an action the city can take if we have someone that just doesn’t want to respond to education and outreach.”

Most of the entities impacted would be able to claim that they couldn’t meet the requirements because they posed an undue financial burden and apply for an individual exemption.

Tafoya and GreenLatinos planned to meet Wednesday with council members to discuss their concerns further ahead of next week’s meeting of the Business, Arts, Workforce, Climate and Aviation Services Committee.

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A startup grocery service that provided a pipeline from area farmers and producers to customers in metro Denver has ceased operations after deciding it could no longer make a go of it financially.

PineMelon started business in April 2022, billing itself as a “local-first” online and grocery delivery service. Working out of a 30,000-square-foot warehouse on the north side of Denver, PineMelon featured fruits, vegetables, meat, breads, desserts and prepared meals from clients across the Front Range and on the Western Slope.

PineMelon said suppliers included 400-plus local farmers and makers. The company said its mission was “to build a food system that is better for our environment, builds our community, provides healthier food, and allows local food makers to thrive.”

The online grocer also proved to be an avenue of commerce for area producers once farmers markets closed for the season.

PineMelon CEO Alex Lee said in a statement Friday that the company was grateful to the local farmers, ranchers and producers who had worked with it and to the customers who took a chance “on a whole new way to shop for groceries.”

But despite efforts “to remedy our current financial situation,” PineMelon would halt all operations Sunday, Lee said. “At this time, we do not know if or when we will be able to resume operations.”

PineMelon said it filled orders for pickup Monday and planned to close out by 6 p.m.

Christopher Ford, PineMelion’s chief marketing officer, said in an email that the company tried to develop a sustainable business model that put more money in the hands of local farmers, didn’t require a subscription and didn’t outsource jobs to gig workers.

“Managing the costs associated with these values has proven challenging,” Ford said.

Company officials said PineMelon wasn’t able to sustain the high level of scale needed to make its business model work. PineMelon had 43 full- and part-time employees.

“I think I was one of the first local farmers that they brought on,” said Ryan Ericson, owner of Well Fed Farmstead in Fort Collins.

Ericson grows 100 different varieties of vegetables, fruits, flowers and herbs on about  2.5 acres in the city. He said he made between $500 and $1,000 a week in 2024 by selling his products to PineMelon.

“I don’t really have another wholesale outlet like PineMelon in this area,” Ericson said. “I have a lot of different markets that I sell to, which is very helpful in this case.”

Ericson said he will likely sell more of his products to retail outlets and might go to more farmers markets.

“I thought PineMelon was really innovative,” Ericson said. “They seemed excited about expanding. I’m sad to see them go.”

Updated at May 13, 2025,  at 11:21 a.m. to correct the number of suppliers that PineMelon worked with.

Originally Published: May 13, 2025 at 11:08 AM MDT