A Boulder-born Thai restaurant group is set to open a new cafe near Denver Union Station this fall, moving into the storefront left vacant after a decade-old Chinese fast-casual spot closed its doors. Busaba Thai is taking over the space at 1625 Wynkoop Street, according to owner Shekhar Pokhrel.
Pokhrel told WhatNow that Busaba Thai is expected to open this fall in the space near Union Station. The new location will be Busaba's sixth along the Front Range, following its original Louisville restaurant and later additions in east Boulder, Erie, downtown Boulder's Pearl Street, and Longmont, according to background reported by Denver Westword. Pokhrel grew up on a farm in Nepal before studying accounting and finance at CU Boulder and working as a dishwasher at Boulder's The Siamese Plate, and he spent a full year training with the Phairatphiboon family, who founded Busaba in 2010, before acquiring the restaurant from them in September 2019.
A Thai Cafe Takes Over a Decade-Old Denver Spot
The new location will operate as a Thai cafe, describing itself, per its parent company, the Jittlada Group, as offering a more polished dining experience, according to WhatNow. Jittlada Group operates several restaurant concepts, and its Busaba menu focuses on traditional Thai dishes alongside smaller plates and familiar Western favorites, per the same report. Menu staples expected at the Denver cafe include tom yum soup, massaman curry, and a Thai salmon salad, along with a signature dessert built from tapioca pearls, taro, sweet corn, and warm coconut cream.
The Busaba name itself comes from the Thai word for flower, a detail established when the original Louisville restaurant opened in 2010, according to WhatNow. Beyond its Colorado roots, the brand also has locations in shopping centers across Jakarta, Indonesia, including Pacific Place Mall, Pondok Indah Mall, and PIK Avenue Mall, per WhatNow's reporting.
Filling the Void Left by Zoe Ma Ma
Busaba is moving into the former home of Zoe Ma Ma, a Chinese restaurant that closed near Union Station after more than a decade in business. Zoe Ma Ma shut its 1625 Wynkoop Street location in February 2025 when its 10-year lease expired, with owner Edwin Zoe citing reduced post-pandemic office-worker foot traffic as a factor, Denver Westword reported. Founded 15 years earlier in Boulder by Edwin Zoe and his mother, Anne Zoe, the home-style Taiwanese noodle and dumpling concept continues to operate its flagship Pearl Street location in Boulder while building out Denver-area catering and delivery, according to the same Westword report.
The turnover at 1625 Wynkoop Street reflects a broader pattern playing out across Lower Downtown Denver. Data from the Downtown Denver Partnership shows downtown Denver logged 73 million total visits in 2025 and reached a 90 percent foot-traffic recovery rate compared with pre-pandemic 2019 levels, aided by 72 new ground-floor business openings. Yet weekday office-worker presence downtown remained muted at roughly 61 percent of 2019 levels late last year, according to the Downtown Denver Partnership, a gap that has squeezed daytime-dependent restaurants even as weekend and event traffic has rebounded.
Union Station's Ongoing Dining Refresh
Busaba's arrival adds to a wave of food and beverage changes around the historic transit hub. Denver Union Station underwent a broader food and beverage refresh in September 2025, reopening updated outposts for Pigtrain Coffee Co. and Milkbox Ice Creamery following multi-month architectural redesigns led by BOSS Architecture, according to Daily Coffee News. Hoodline has also reported on a new taproom moving into the Fred Harvey Room, and more recently detailed a revived presidential suite cocktail lounge inside the building.
Denver Union Station itself has anchored much of this activity since its transformation from a working transit center into a dining and hospitality destination. The station, originally opened in 1881 and rebuilt in 1914, underwent a $54 million historic renovation completed in 2014 that reimagined the property around The Crawford Hotel. That redevelopment has served as a catalyst for commercial growth throughout Lower Downtown Denver in the years since, setting the stage for concepts like Busaba to now claim a spot inside its footprint this fall.
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