Walk to the top of Bridge Street this month and something feels off, in a good way. There's a DJ booth glowing amber inside the Sebastian where Leonora used to serve ceviche. The Vista Bahn Building has scaffolding-adjacent buzz about a private club with a wine list curated by one of four people on Earth who holds both master sommelier and master of wine titles. And down at Hanson Ranch Road, the building that's held the Red Lion since Vail's first ski season is quietly being measured for a future that doesn't include the Red Lion at all.
The easy story is that Vail Village is trading its funky, sun-bleached character for something glossier and more corporate. That story is only half true. Look closer at who actually owns the new leases, and the more interesting fact is that the people replacing Bridge Street's old guard are, in several cases, Bridge Street's old guard.
What's already open, and what's still hiring
Two of the summer's most talked-about arrivals sit within a hundred yards of each other at the top of Bridge Street.
- Zuma Vail opened June 11 inside The Sebastian, taking the space that formerly housed Leonora. It's the first alpine location in North America for a brand that started in London in 2002 under chef Rainer Becker and has since opened more than two dozen locations worldwide, including outposts in New York, Boston, and Las Vegas.
- The Sixty Two Society, Brad Kaemmer's members' club and restaurant replacing Los Amigos in the Vista Bahn Building, was anticipating a summer debut with a Michelin-caliber chef and Doug Frost, one of only four people in the world to hold both master of wine and master sommelier credentials, curating the beverage program. As of midsummer the project was still posting job listings for its founding team, so if you haven't seen it open yet, that's why.
Kaemmer isn't an outside operator parachuting into a hot market. He's framed the project as personal, telling Vail-Beaver Creek Magazine that the club is "a heritage and legacy project" and that he's "coming back to my hometown to try to do some good stuff." That detail matters more than it sounds like it should, because it sets up the pattern that plays out again a block away.
The real disruption isn't a restaurant. It's a building.
The bigger story on Bridge Street isn't Zuma or the Society. It's the Red Lion Building itself, which has anchored the corner at Hanson Ranch Road since it opened in February 1963, during Vail Mountain's inaugural season. Denver developer Jeff Selby, who's held a stake in the building since 1979 and recently became sole owner along with his son Charlie, is moving forward with a redesign that cuts the restaurant space roughly in half, reorients the dining patio to face Hanson Ranch Road instead of Bridge Street, and fills the vacated Bridge Street frontage with high-end retail. The plan also carves out a below-grade concert venue, the first indoor music space in Vail Village since 8150 closed in 2007.
If you read about this project back in January, you likely came away thinking construction was starting this spring. It isn't anymore. A Vail Daily report from late June confirmed the redevelopment timeline has slipped to spring 2027, meaning the Red Lion and its Bridge Street neighbors get one more full ski season in their current spots. The applicants also went back to the Planning and Environmental Commission on July 13 seeking a 41 percent increase in outdoor patio area, from 748 square feet to 1,259 square feet, a detail that suggests the final footprint is still being negotiated even as the bigger master plan has already cleared town review.
| Business | This season | What comes next |
|---|---|---|
| Red Lion restaurant | Operating as usual through the 2026-27 ski season | Construction begins spring 2027; the new restaurant space won't carry the Red Lion name |
| Big Bear Bistro | Staying put through the coming ski season | Searching for a new Vail Village or Lionshead lease; already running a satellite, Little Bear Café, in Eagle-Vail |
| Blü Cow | Operating as usual on Bridge Street | Owner Simone Larese is fielding offers from other landlords for a future location |
| Zuma Vail | Open since June 11 inside The Sebastian | First alpine location in North America for the global brand |
| The Sixty Two Society | Expected to open this summer in the old Los Amigos space | Still hiring its founding team as of midsummer |
The rumor was wrong about Big Bear
If you'd heard Big Bear Bistro was already gone, you'd been misinformed. Owner Vidette Gehl confirmed to Vail Daily that she's staying in her current Vail location through the summer and into the coming ski season, something she said a lot of people assumed was not happening. She's not disappearing quietly either. Over the winter she opened Little Bear Café in Eagle-Vail's Alpinist workspace building, serving the same breakfast and lunch menu that made Big Bear a local fixture, including its Gondola Grinder loaded with applewood smoked ham, prosciutto, capicola, and genoa salami. She's simultaneously scouting a new home in Vail Village or Lionshead for when her Bridge Street lease finally runs out.
Blü Cow, the hot dog stand that's carried on Ernst Larese's original Swiss hot dog stall from the long-gone Tyrolean Building, is in a similar holding pattern. Owner Simone Larese hasn't announced a new location, but she's reportedly fielding offers from landlords sympathetic to keeping the King of Dogs tradition somewhere on Bridge Street. Neither business is vanishing. Both are in transition, on their own timelines, with their own contingency plans already in motion.
The one closure that reads differently is the Red Lion restaurant itself. Owner Rod Linafelter has been direct about what's at stake, telling Vail Daily that "no matter where you are in the world, if you start talking to people and you say you're from Vail, Colorado, anyone who knows Vail knows the Red Lion." He's said the words he hears most often attached to the place are "iconic" and "heart and soul." Unlike Big Bear or Blü Cow, there's no confirmed second act for the Red Lion name after next season. Selby's team has said they intend to honor the building's history in the new design, preserving the fireplace and entry patio, but the restaurant that reopens in the space won't operate under the Red Lion banner.
The person filling the gap has been here since 2009
Here's the detail that undercuts the easy narrative. The street-level space Big Bear Bistro is vacating isn't going to a national chain. It's going to Scott Rednor, the musician who moved from New Jersey to Vail in 2009 to sing après-ski sets at the Red Lion and later built Shakedown Bar in the building's basement. Rednor is expanding into an East Coast-style deli and tequila bar in the vacated Big Bear footprint, plus a full-service restaurant and concert venue in the new basement space, named Harper & Charly's after his daughters.
"As things got restructured, opportunities were offered, and I'm super grateful to be part of the replanning," Rednor said.
Kaemmer has pushed back on the same skepticism from the Sixty Two Society side, telling the magazine that knee-jerk negative reactions to redevelopment tend to be rooted in nostalgia rather than a clear look at what a sixty-year-old building actually needs. Rednor will keep running Shakedown through the transition, and the plan calls for the venue underneath Bridge Street to finally give Vail Village an indoor concert space again after nearly two decades without one.
What doesn't change while all this sorts out
If you're weighing whether any of this affects your regular Bridge Street routine, most of it doesn't, at least not yet. Sweet Basil and Osaki's remain on Michelin's list of recommended Colorado restaurants for the third year running, and neither is part of the Red Lion project. The Vail Farmers' Market & Art Show keeps running Sundays through October 4 on East Meadow Drive, with the smaller Thursday Meadow Market continuing at the International Bridge through mid-September. Yeti's Grind is still pulling espresso on the ground floor of the Solaris. The businesses actually in motion this year are concentrated on one block, and even there, most of the names you already know are staying through at least one more ski season.
What's actually happening on Bridge Street this year isn't a wholesale reinvention. It's a handful of long-tenured locals rearranging their own footprint before a construction window that hasn't started yet. The Red Lion name may not survive it. Big Bear, Blü Cow, and Shakedown will.
If you're the kind of Vail Village resident who tracks this stuff because you actually live here, not because you're shopping for a condo, you already know how fast these details change once permits get filed and leases get signed. If you ever do want a second opinion on what a building like the Red Lion, or any Vail Village property, is actually worth given how the block around it is shifting, Charley Viola has been watching this street since 1987 and is always glad to talk it through. Get a Free Home Valuation whenever you're curious.
