Cocktail Bar Ay Papi Debuts in Cherry Creek July 4

"Cocktails are important, but they're not the end all, be all. The drinks are incredibly important, and the drinks have to be good, right? But what really needs to be good is the way that people feel when they're there," says Nicole Lebedevitch, partner and beverage director for the Culinary Creative Group, which is behind hits like A5 Steakhouse, Señor Bear, Bar Dough, Carrie Baird's new breakfast spot Fox and the Hen, and Red Tops Rendezvous, a Detroit-style pizza joint that debuted on July 1.

Now the busy restaurant group is adding another bar to its lineup: Ay Papi, which opens July 4 at 248 Detroit Street in Cherry Creek, next door to one of the area's two Aviano Coffee locations — a concept also run by Culinary Creative.

The name of the bar was inspired by the Puerto Rican heritage of the group's founder, Juan Padró. "It was perfectly accidental as to how the name came about," Lebedevitch notes, recalling a team meeting when someone said, "Ay, Papi," a phrase that Padró has heard his whole life.

For Puerto Ricans, he says, "'papi' is a term of endearment."

With the name chosen, the rest of the concept unfolded naturally. A painting that artist Joaquin Gonzales gave Padró of him as a boy with his late father in a hammock under a mango tree in Puerto Rico hangs in the long and narrow space, which has been outfitted with a new skylight to bring in plenty of sunshine during the day; there is also be a small front patio.

"It's going to have an intimate kind of feel. I hope that I get to throw the chairs against the wall and have people dancing down the middle of that tight bar," Lebedevitch says.

On the drink menu, expect mojitos and daiquiris. "Think citrus and rum," she promises, along with "white and zippy acidic wines" and seafood-forward bites like ceviche. "Stylistically, it'll be a place to go enjoy a refreshing cocktail," she adds.

Just one block from the future Ay Papi is Forget Me Not, the cocktail bar that Culinary Creative debuted in March 2021. Lebedevitch headed up that project, too. A seasoned industry vet with two decades of experience, she joined the group in 2019 after years of wooing from Padró, who saw her talent and wanted her on his team.

And she's not the only person Culinary Creative has recruited in a similar way. In fact, its focus on nourishing creatives through its unusual approach to running a hospitality group has been a key factor in the company's success and continued growth.

After launching their first restaurant venture, Highland Tap & Burger, in 2010, Padró, along with co-founder and CFO Katie O'Shea, took on what Padró says was their first chef-driven project — Old Major.

"We started looking at the business model, and we were like, man, this is a really broken model," Padró recalls. "It makes no sense. Everything is backwards. You have all this talent that is at the hourly level and is suppressed, and then your leadership is usually not your best people. So you have C players managing A players. That doesn't seem like a logical business decision. How do we fix that?"

For the answer, Padró looked to his days working as a headhunter in the late ’90s, during the dot-com era. As the business of online sales began to boom, incubators became the go-to. "That's how Silicon Valley started," he notes. "They provided all the administrative support, accounting and finance and payroll. Everything from buildouts, marketing, PR, dealing with media," so that young Java coders could concentrate on just coding.

"So we started talking about the idea of doing that with artists," he continues. "Whether they're chefs or cocktail creators or whatever. The biggest thing for an artist is to have time to create. And so how do we provide an environment in a very real and complex business where we're leaving the majority of their time to create?"

At Culinary Creative, making that environment a reality meant building out its own infrastructure. "We realigned our company and restructured it into almost like a software company, where we have verticals. We have a Latin division and an Americana division, coffee, cocktail and specialty, which is the incubator — that's where the one-offs live until they're not one-offs anymore," Padró says.

Supporting it all is an operational team that handles everything from events and marketing to buildouts. "I think most restaurants probably fail in construction, to be honest with you," Padró notes. "They never really recover. Even if they open, they never really recover from the debt that they acquire. So we have someone in charge of that. And our chefs innovate; our content creators innovate."

That approach was appealing to Lebedevitch. "I ran bar programs at restaurants and was the general manager and beverage director role, and I always multi-tasked my way through. ... Then the opportunity came to run it for myself, and with the opportunity for a group to grow into multiple locations," she says of her current position.

When she moved to Denver to take the job, which also includes running the beverage program for all Culinary Creative concepts, the role was focused on creating Forget Me Not. "Now we're looking at a cocktail division in this corporation that's a pretty powerful entity in bringing culture and nightlife into Cherry Creek," she says.

The focus on Cherry Creek, an area known more for high-end dining and shopping than nightlife, is no accident. "That's a very real conversation that we had. If we're going to be able to affect Denver, we've got to do it in the most difficult place and prove that it can be done," Padró says,

For new-to-the-city Lebedevitch, opening a cocktail bar in Cherry Creek was more about the actual bar concept and less about its location. "I wasn't coming in with a preconceived notion of 'This is who I need to cater to,'" she explains. Instead, she leaned into "pushing the envelope to see where we could go. What we realized was, people were looking for something different."

Padró and Lebedevitch agree that despite its reputation, there is no set demographic for Cherry Creek. "There isn't one person who lives here," Lebedevitch notes. "It's really crossing that boundary of bringing people together of all ages and all cultures and all styles, and really just kind of playing to what Cherry Creek was always thought of as not. Which is a place to go ahead and bring people together," she says of Forget Me Not.

"The fact that the most desirable neighborhood, for many people, closes down at 9:30 p.m. every night, there's a problem," Padró adds. "So that's why Ay Papi is coming. And we're going to continue to invest our time and resources in Cherry Creek. I think people consider it walkable, but walkable to what? And I think at the end of the day, it just needs some local influence."
Both Forget Me Not and Ay Papi are not only open late, but will also continue serving food until 1 a.m., a rarity these days in Denver in general, but especially in Cherry Creek. "With the pandemic, late-night dining died in the city," says Lebedevitch. "And thank God My Brother's Bar is back and open until 2 a.m., but I think that's the beginning of the momentum that we're going to see for the next year. And we want to be a part of that for down here."

"We're hoping to get a liquor license at Aviano, too," Padró adds. "We want to create a vibe on the street."

His group is creating a lot of other new things, as well. "We're in growth mode," he notes. "We've got a goal to get this thing to $100 million in top-line sales in 2025, and to create a lot of jobs in Denver." Culinary Creative's current list of projects includes expanding Aviano and Mister Oso, and focusing on other heavy hitters like A5, which Padró says has "exceeded expectations."

Some upcoming ventures are entirely new concepts, such as Filipino eatery Magna Kainan from Portland chef Carlo Lamagna, which will open next year in the NOVEL RiNo apartment community, where Culinary Creative is also set to add a rooftop bar. "It's going to be iconic," Padró affirms.

Closer on the horizon is Kumoya, a Japanese eatery that is being developed with Corey Baker, the former chef/partner of Sushi Ronin.

The group is also moving into Denver International Airport's Terminal C. "The first thing you'll see when you walk in there will be a sit-down Bar Dough, a fast-casual Oso and Aviano, and a market," says Padró.

Expansion plays aren't limited to Denver, either. Along with eyeing Boulder, the group is opening several concepts in New Orleans, where it was a consulting partner on modern-Italian eatery Sofia. Those additions include outposts of A5 and Mister Oso, along with new concepts like Bohemia, which Padró describes as "an outdoor bar garden with a few prefab shipping-container kitchens, with hammocks and swings.

"We have deals signed all the way through 2026," he adds. "We want to incubate a creative company. We want our talent to be able to grow. A creative economy is really important."

That means that within the next two years, Lebedevitch "will be overseeing $35 to $40 million in booze sales, which is pretty substantial for independent restaurants," Padró says.

But she has another goal on her long list. "I'm trying really hard to get a Cherry Creek golf cart to bring people from one place to another," Lebedevitch says. "The perfect little sound system on the back of it, and just enjoy your ride from one place to another."

"We're getting a golf cart," Padró promises. "It's coming."

Ay Papi is located at 248 Detroit Street and will be open from 1 p.m. to 1 a.m. Sunday through Wednesday and 1 p.m. to 2 a.m. Thursday through Saturday beginning July 4. For more information, follow it on Instagram @aypapidenver.