Most of the 2026 restaurant openings in Montrose have now been open for a season. What changed this fall happened inside places that were already running. A downtown dinner restaurant added a separate lunch room. A pizza shop moved into a bigger space. An upscale Asian restaurant on Main Street is working on a menu that costs less to order from. Each change makes a place easier to visit on an ordinary day in November.
The projects built around visitors are moving more slowly. A boutique hotel planned for the former City Hall and fire station, and a food hall planned for North Cascade Avenue, are both still being worked on. Montrose goes into this winter with its dining growth built mostly for the people who already live here.
Main Street Restaurants Made More Room After Opening
The clearest example is at 232 E. Main St. where Katie Graves and her husband, Spencer, opened Eatery 66 North for dinner earlier this year about a decade after starting the original restaurant in Ridgway, according to the Montrose Daily Press. They then renovated the building into two rooms under one roof. One serves dinner. The other was built for lunch and can also be rented for private parties. Lunch started in September with its own menu of shareables, soups, salads and handhelds.
Graves told the paper the lunch room was meant to feel "casual, yet comfortable." She said people can get in and out on a lunch break or stay as long as they like. The restaurant's website lists fall lunch hours of Thursday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
A few blocks east, PRUF opened a larger shop at 512 E. Main St. in mid-August. Owners Nate Gueck, Troy Ryder and Beau Miller added more seating and expanded the menu beyond New York-style slices to include Detroit-style pies. Montrose Business Times reported that they also plan to host small live-music events in the new room.
Between them, the two changes add indoor seating to Main Street as the season turns cold.
Place | Address | What changed in 2026 | When |
|---|---|---|---|
Eatery 66 North | 232 E. Main St. | Dedicated lunch room and menu added to a dinner restaurant | Lunch began in September |
PRUF | 512 E. Main St. | Larger shop, more seating, Detroit-style pies | Mid-August |
Persimmon | Main and Cascade | Upscale Asian dining, menu being broadened | Open about three months as of late October |
MsSo Asian Noodle Bar | Main and Cascade | A month of wok and noodle training for its cooks | Training in August, first anniversary in January |
Star Cajun Seafood Boil | 44 S. Grand Ave. | New restaurant in the former Amelia's Hacienda | Early October |
Persimmon's First Winter Starts With a Wider Menu
Typhoon Hospitality runs two restaurants at the corner of Main and Cascade. MsSo Asian Noodle Bar turns one in January. Persimmon, the company's upscale Asian dining concept, had been open about three months when Montrose Business Times profiled the company's new general manager in late October.
The GM is Edward Read. He spent much of his career in luxury hotels, restaurants and private clubs, starting with Mandarin Oriental. His most recent job was running the Aberdeen Marina Club in Hong Kong. He moved to Montrose with his family in August. He told the paper that Persimmon opened with a fairly limited menu, partly because of staffing, and that the company is now working on a menu with more variety and more approachable options. He also said Persimmon's prices can make it feel less approachable to some customers, and that he wants to change that without lowering the quality of the dining. In his words, as quoted by Montrose Business Times:
"Not everybody wants to have a big steak when they come in. Some people just want a burger or some pasta."
The restaurant took a long time to build. Persimmon was first aimed at a 2025 opening. Finding skilled tradespeople and finishing the custom interior took longer than expected, and much of the woodwork was made by hand, including the booths, the partitions and the bar.
MsSo's changes are in the kitchen. In August, Typhoon brought in a consultant who had been working in Hong Kong to spend a month teaching the staff wok cooking, noodle making and how to build traditional flavors. Read said those skills are uncommon in Montrose restaurants. He also said the two restaurants have settled into more stable teams after a period of turnover. He described Montrose's hiring pool as small, a place where "pretty much everyone's worked everywhere."
So the corner's most formal dining room is adjusting toward everyday meals, the same direction Eatery 66 North took with lunch.
Grand Avenue and South Townsend Picked Up the Rest
The fall's one brand-new sit-down restaurant opened just off Main. Star Cajun Seafood Boil opened in early October at 44 S. Grand Ave., in the building that used to house Amelia's Hacienda. Owners Esley Cano and Famai Boonin, who also own Chang Thai, serve Cajun boils, gumbo, po'boys and beignets made to order. The chef and manager is Louisiana-born Adrian Musgrove, according to Montrose Business Times.
Several smaller changes are spread around town:
- City Market at 16400 S. Townsend Ave. finished an $18.5 million expansion in August. The 83,000-square-foot store is now the chain's largest in Colorado. It has bigger fresh-food departments, more sushi and cheese, a pharmacy drive-through and an improved Starbucks, Montrose Business Times reported.
- 7 Brew at 1433 Encanto Place reopened under Emerge, a Houston-based company that bought the drive-through. Co-founder Mick Rosckowff told Montrose Business Times that Montrose is the starting point for the company's growth across Western Colorado.
- Steamy Weiners, Justin Gleason's hot dog truck, started operating in September and has a semi-permanent spot at Camelot Gardens. The menu includes bratwurst, kielbasa and a "Detroit Dog," the Montrose Daily Press reported.
Cascade Avenue Holds the Next Chapter on Paper
The projects aimed at visitors are both tied to Cascade Avenue, and both are still in planning.
Typhoon Hospitality still plans a boutique hotel and restaurant in the former City Hall and fire station buildings next to Centennial Plaza. In the same October profile, Read said the project has taken longer than expected. Before construction can start, the company has to finalize its design concepts and get ready to raise capital. He said he hopes that in five years the hotel will be open or close to opening. He also explained who it is meant for. Many travelers fly into Montrose Regional Airport, stop briefly for supplies and drive on to places like Telluride without spending much time in town. He said the owners, John and Alia Eyres, chose to restore historic downtown buildings instead of building on open land, even though older buildings cost more and take longer to renovate.
MADA's Cascade Cocina is planned for 27 and 29 N. Cascade Ave. The Montrose Daily Press described it as a commercial kitchen and marketplace of roughly $2 million. Plans include a larger shared kitchen, dedicated vendor space, a pickup area for prepared food, a restaurant on site and possibly a leased bar or coffee counter. The state's Rural Economic Development Initiative award list for 2026–2027 includes a final award of $150,000 for the Cascade Cocina and Food Hub Marketplace.
If both projects are built, Cascade Avenue would have a hotel for travelers coming from the airport and a shared kitchen for the small food businesses that keep downtown going. For now, the winter changes are the ones already running on Main Street: a lunch room at 232 E. Main St. from Thursday through Sunday, more seats at PRUF and a broader menu in the works at Persimmon.
Whether you are hosting in Montrose this winter or planning to spend more time here, Amanda F Swain keeps track of what is opening, changing and being planned along Main and Cascade, and can tell you how it bears on the home you own or are considering. Explore My Properties.
