Two new businesses are moving into the sprawling Boulder Street complex that developer Paul Tamburello has spent two decades turning into one of LoHi's busiest dining and retail corridors. The Acadian, a Cajun restaurant from chef David Simpson, and The General Store, a gift shop expanding from Littleton, are set to fill storefronts steps from Little Man Ice Cream's original scoop stand.
According to The Denver Post, Tamburello leased two retail units in his building at 1575 Boulder St. to the pair of new tenants. Tamburello, who also owns the retail and office building on the other side of Little Man and the parking lot across the street, told the Post that The Acadian will be “absolutely next level for LoHi.” The restaurant will occupy a 4,900-square-foot space that includes a second-story bar, a rooftop dining area, and an outdoor patio along Boulder Street, with a menu built around jambalaya, truffle tenderloin steak, and Louisiana-style braised short ribs.
Simpson brings some international credibility to the venture — the Denver native and Tulane University graduate runs a restaurant group in Bogotá, Colombia, where he co-founded Tremé, a Cajun and Creole restaurant set inside a 100-year-old colonial home in the Quinta Camacho neighborhood, as detailed by Infobae. That restaurant fused traditional Cajun recipes with Colombian ingredients, a template Simpson now brings back to his hometown.
A $700,000 Overhaul of a Former Sandwich Shop
The Acadian is taking over a space that most recently housed Dimestore Delibar, a hybrid sandwich shop, bar, and neighborhood bodega that closed in October 2025 after nearly six years in business, per the Post. A permit filed with the City and County of Denver in February put the renovation cost at $700,000, according to Developing Denver, with plans that include interior bar redesigns, kitchen hood upgrades, replacement rooftop pergolas, and new folding glass doors leading to the patio.
Next door, The General Store will replace Scarlet Salon, a hair salon that had served LoHi since 2007 before closing at the end of March. Owner Nicole Haas is expanding from her original store, General Store 45 in historic downtown Littleton, which she bought eight years before publication, the Post reports. The LoHi location will be twice the size of the Littleton original, and Haas told the Post the combined stores will carry roughly 20,000 items in inventory, including gifts, plants, and frozen meals, with an average sale of $24.
Waiting on the City's Green Light
Haas said The General Store will give back to the neighborhood, and she's also exploring the possibility of occasionally selling produce and obtaining a liquor license, though she's still waiting for the city's approval on that front. Once she receives the green light on permitting, Haas told the Post she plans to open two to four weeks later, with the shop likely staying open until at least 10 or 11 p.m.
Neither business has a confirmed opening date yet, since Denver's permitting and inspection timelines will ultimately determine when both doors unlock. Little Man Ice Cream, which closes at midnight in summer, opened in 2008 and remains the anchor drawing foot traffic to the whole stretch of Boulder Street that Tamburello has redeveloped over the years.
The Mortuary Roots of a Dining District
The turnover at 1575 Boulder St. is the latest chapter for a property with an unusual history. Tamburello purchased the 0.3-acre parcel from Olinger Mortuary in late 2002, and his early redevelopment of the site converted the main mortuary building into the restaurant Linger, complete with a neon sign altered from “Olinger Mortuary” to “Linger Eatuary,” as chronicled by Denver Westword. That early work earned Tamburello the nickname “Godfather of Highland” for pioneering commercial development in Lower Highland and coining the LoHi acronym itself.
The building has continued to evolve since then. In 2017, Tamburello opened The Family Jones Spirit House, Denver's first distillery-restaurant, inside the same redeveloped mortuary complex, Westword reported at the time. More recently, a gothic-chic basement tapas and cocktail lounge called Dearly Departed opened on the property's subterranean level in 2025, leaning into the building's mortuary past, according to the LoHi Neighborhood Guide.
The arrivals of The Acadian and The General Store follow other recent shifts in Tamburello's holdings. In April, Hoodline reported that Tamburello was consolidating several sister scoop shops, including Sweet Cooie's and The Constellation, under the flagship Little Man Ice Cream name — part of a broader pattern of change across the properties he has shaped in LoHi over more than two decades.
