On the cold morning of Oct. 28, a crane lifted the 40-foot El Rancho sign off its post above US 40 in two pieces of roughly 750 pounds each. The same crew cut holes in the roof so the brewery tanks could come out. Canyon Courier reported that the building now stands mostly empty, with parts of its roof open to the weather, and that no demolition date is known.
Anyone heading from Genesee toward the I-70 exit for El Rancho now sees a landmark taken apart and nothing built yet to replace it. The QuikTrip planned for the site has not finished county review. The salvaged pieces have already gone to three towns, and the first thing built to carry El Rancho forward opens this Saturday at Buchanan Park.
Where the pieces went
The Evergreen Park & Recreation District, known as EPRD, took on the salvage work. According to the Colorado Sun, engineers had already concluded that the old building could not be lifted and moved in one piece. So the district set out to keep its best parts instead.
Piece | Where it went |
|---|---|
The 40-foot metal sign | In EPRD storage for a future green room at Buchanan Park |
Chandeliers, bar, wood, benches, rockwork, foliage | Listed by EPRD for the same green room |
Fermenters | Tommyknockers in Idaho Springs |
Grain silo | Cabin Creek Brewery in Georgetown |
Pots, pans, dishes, chairs, tables | Sold to the public on Oct. 10 |
Money from the Oct. 10 sale goes to the all-access playground planned for Buchanan Park, according to the Canyon Courier's report on the sale. EPRD says QuikTrip worked with it on the salvage so the materials would stay out of a landfill and lower the cost of building the green room. Jefferson County's February meeting minutes describe a no-cost agreement that lets EPRD salvage the materials and store them for the pavilion's second phase.
The two breweries add a short drive-up-the-canyon chapter. El Rancho's own brewing started in 2015. It won a gold medal at the 2016 Great American Beer Festival and a silver at the 2022 World Beer Cup, as the Greeley Tribune recorded. That equipment now belongs to brewers in Idaho Springs and Georgetown.
Why the exit carries the restaurant's name
The amount of care going into a gas station site makes sense once you know the building's history. El Rancho was built in 1948 as a mountain-themed automobile lodge and restaurant, and the Canyon Courier notes it quickly became a major rest stop for travelers heading from the plains into the mountains. It started out as a cafe and trading post, and its spot on US 40 turned it into a popular gift shop and post office, as the Denver Post has detailed. According to KDVR, highway engineers first talked about an interchange with owner Paul McEncroe in 1969, and the exit opened in 1972. At the February press conference, the EPRD board president called it the only eatery with its own named exit off a federal highway. Officials also recalled years of community meetings held over cinnamon rolls and coffee, as the Colorado Sun reported.
The restaurant's final stretch was short. It reopened in January 2023 under Frank Bonanno's Bonanno Concepts. Bonanno left in April 2024, as the Denver Post reported, and the restaurant closed in August 2024. In February 2025, QuikTrip bought the El Rancho parcel and the bank property next door for $6.17 million.
The two other futures that were turned down
Before the salvage plan, there were two serious attempts to keep the building standing. Some Evergreen-area residents pushed for months to reopen the restaurant where it stood, according to the Colorado Sun. Separately, a team of local developers and the owners of Evergreen Bicycle Outfitters proposed moving the building across US 40 to the Observatory property, where it would house a brewery, a bike shop and a boutique hotel. That plan depended on a metropolitan district to pay for the public infrastructure.
The county's Planning Commission voted 6-0 to recommend denial of the district on Aug. 27, 2025. County commissioners then denied it 2-1 on Sept. 30, 2025. The Canyon Courier describes the two-year Save El Rancho campaign as unsuccessful.
County officials have said from the start that the property's existing commercial zoning already allowed a gas station. That meant the QuikTrip proposal needed no rezoning, but it still needed a site development review and permits, as the Colorado Sun explained. That review is where the project stands now.
What still has to happen at the exit
QuikTrip's formal site development plan, filed May 23, 2025, calls for a 4,996-square-foot store and 16 fuel pumps. It keeps a single entrance on US 40 and uses roughly the 2.63 acres that are already developed. The semi-truck fueling and hillside excavation in the 2024 pre-application are gone from this version.
According to the project tracker kept by the Save El Rancho Campaign, here is the order of the remaining steps:
- On June 17, 2026, county planners sent second-round comments back to QuikTrip. They flagged landscaping, access and roadway improvements, the site plan, and historical resources.
- The application now needs a third referral review.
- The project also needs a CDOT access permit, which the campaign's tracker lists as not yet applied for.
- The application itself projects build-out in 2028.
Those dates differ from what was said in February. At that press conference, QuikTrip real estate manager Craig Romrell told the Colorado Sun the station could move ahead possibly by late this year, once parts of the restaurant had been preserved. The preservation work is now mostly done, and county review is still open. For now, drivers at the El Rancho exit will pass an empty building with no sign.
Saturday at Buchanan Park
The Colorado Sun places Buchanan Park just south of I-70, along the Evergreen Parkway exit. EPRD's new Bear Creek Pavilion, presented by the Michael E. McGoldrick Foundation, is a 2,250-square-foot open-air stage for music and performing arts. It has stage lighting and flexible audio-visual hookups.
The ribbon cutting is this Saturday, Nov. 14, from 1 to 3 p.m., and it is open to the public. Presentations and the ribbon cutting run from 1 to 1:30, followed by live music. Per architecture firm EVstudio, Dean Dalvit, one of the project's architects, plans to play with The Midday Sons, an Evergreen band that plays Americana, alternative country and rock, under the pavilion's mass timber roof. Event details are on EPRD's Buchanan Park project page.
The El Rancho green room is planned for the pavilion's second phase. It will be a building attached to the stage, styled to look like El Rancho and finished with its sign and salvaged materials. Performers will use it during shows, and the public can rent or use it at other times. The Canyon Courier reports that the green room has no construction timeline yet.
EPRD's director of community engagement, Nancy Judge, led both the sale and the sign removal. She told the Canyon Courier that the district knows residents hold "so many important memories from big-life events to Friday Night prime rib dinners," and that it "plans to create a new space in Buchanan Park where many new memories will be created for generations to come." The sign is in storage, and the stage it will stand beside opens at 1 p.m. on Saturday.
Julia Purrington-Paluck's Professional Engineer background means she follows projects like this one, through referral rounds, access permits and phased builds, the same way she reviews a mountain lot. If you have questions about how the changes at the El Rancho exit and Buchanan Park could affect the part of the foothills you call home, Colorado Foothills Living is glad to help. Schedule a Foothills Consultation.
