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Mezzaluna Aspen bids farewell after 37 years

Mezzaluna owners Deryk Cave, left, and Grant "Junior" Sutherland pose for a photo on Wednesday, July 26, 2023, in front of their Aspen restaurant. Mezzaluna will close its doors the first week of October.
Austin Colbert/The Aspen Times

After 37 years, beloved Aspen eatery Mezzaluna will close its doors the first week of October to make way for a new concept, ZigZag, which is due to open in December.

“It was just time (for me) to play more and travel. Thirty-one years is a pretty long time to be doing anything,” owner Deryk Cave said. “It’s not getting easier with competition and … a lot of the old restaurants … closed and big money starting to come in and buy all the places.”

When Cave and his partner decided to sell they turned to local realtor Angi Wang.



“Deryk and Junior came to me, and since I have sold other restaurants they asked me if it was feasible or if I had anybody interested in taking a look at the restaurant,” Wang said, referring to Cave’s partner, Grant “Junior” Sutherland. “They’ve been doing this for over 30 years, and I think they’re ready to move on. They’ve been at it a long time, and it’s a hard business, especially now.”

Wang said they had a lot of interest but ultimately decided to go with Romain Pavee — a 20-year luxury hospitality veteran in New York, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles — along with Scott and Carly Weber, long-time Aspen residents, prominent realtors, and local philanthropists.




The new concept will be a modern French/American bistro with a Colorado-fresh approach to ingredients and processes and will serve lunch, brunch, apres, and dinner. The kitchen will be run by chef Sam Talbot, who is relocating to Aspen to lead the new venture. Meanwhile, the bar program will be overseen by craft bar expert Devon Tarby, formerly of Proprietors LLC in Los Angeles.

Cave bought Mezzaluna six years after its opening in 1993 from the original owner, Charif Souki, with his business partner at the time, Joe Cosniac. Souki was also an owner of the Mezzaluna restaurant in Los Angeles which became a hotspot for people following the O.J. Simpson case since both victims worked at the restaurant, and it was where Nicole Brown Simpson had her last meal.

Mezzaluna owner Deryk Cave, left, and partner Grant “Junior” Sutherland.
Austin Colbert/The Aspen Times

In those days celebrities from Hunter S. Thompson and Jimmy Buffett to Jack Nicholson, Bono, and even former President Bill Clinton were often spotted at 624 E. Cooper Ave.

Twenty years after Cave and Cosniac bought the restaurant, Cave bought out Cosniac’s portion of the restaurant, and Sutherland — who started as a busboy in 1990 and had been working as a manager since before the restaurant was sold — became Cave’s new partner.

“I have worked there 34 years, first as a busboy, eventually a manager, and became a partner,” Sutherland said. “I’ve coached soccer here for 30 years so the kids wanted to come into Mezzaluna, and the parents brought them in, and now those kids are bringing their kids in. I’m a bit emotional because it was like a family, from the employees to the customers, it was like home.”

The Mezzaluna soccer team poses for a photo. Grant “Junior” Sutherland has been coaching soccer in the Roaring Fork Valley since 1990.
Courtesy Image

A large portion of the staff has been working at Mezzaluna for decades and in turn helped create the “Mezzaluna family.” Cave attributes the high retention rate to treating staff well and cultivating a good work environment.

“We’ve always taken care of our staff,” Sutherland reiterated. “We’ve been very fortunate to have a great relationship with our staff. And at the end of the day, you take care of your staff, your staff takes care of you. You’ve got to be fair to them, bottom line.”

Cave said that retaining long-time staff members created an environment that welcomed returning customers, fostering a dynamic of friendship rather than solely a transactional customer-waiter relationship.

“Most people that come in are now our friends,” Cave said. “So, its (closing) is a little bittersweet as you’d imagine.”

Cave said another secret to their success was providing good value to customers, continuing to offer a happy hour and bar menu when many other restaurants were not.

“It was important to us that people could come in and get some kind of value,” he continued. “Pre-COVID everywhere used to offer value, as far as the price of food and the price of drinks. But now, it seems most places just want to be the most expensive place in town.”

Mezzaluna’s distinctly local vibe and resistance to becoming corporate appealed to the “regular people” of Aspen, attracting a more low-key but intensely loyal crowd.

“There are so many relationships that we’ve been able to build,” Sutherland continued. “And for Mezzaluna, that has brought people into the restaurant over the years as well.”

Pizza at Mezzaluna during happy hour.
Kimberly Nicoletti

Like any other business, workforce housing in the Roaring Fork Valley posed a challenge for staff, many of whom have been forced by rising housing prices to relocate downvalley. 

Recognizing that many customers too had moved downvalley, Cave and Sutherland opened another location in Willits in 2017, which will remain open and be operated by Sutherland.

Mezzaluna Aspen will be handed over to the new owners on Oct. 7, but the last night it will be open to the public for dinner is Thursday, Oct. 3. On Friday, Oct. 4, and Saturday, Oct. 5, it will be open for lunch and happy hour only.

“I would like to thank all the local customers for their support over the years because they made it a family, and without them, we could never have survived,” Sutherland said. “We needed them during the off-seasons and year-round, and they were the ones we wanted to take care of. We want to make sure that we thank and recognize them, for without them, we could never have done it.”

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