"We're gonna have a big New Year's Eve party and drink whatever's left," Ann Marie Fitzpatrick told Telluride News when she announced that O'Bannon's Irish Pub will close on Dec. 31. She also said the bar will keep its regular 4 p.m. to 2 a.m. hours until the end of 2026. Most of Main Street is on a different schedule. Many of its kitchens are closed now and won't be back until December.
The ski calendar and the restaurant calendar come back at different times. Telluride Ski Resort's targeted opening day is Thursday, Nov. 26, which is Thanksgiving. According to the Fall 2026 off-season dining schedule from Visit Telluride, most of the restaurants that closed in town list closures ending between Dec. 3 and Dec. 10. That puts most of Main Street's return in the days around Noel Night, which is set for Dec. 9.
Thanksgiving week is the thin spot
The order of events goes like this. KOTO reports that the gondola will reopen for winter on Friday, Nov. 20. The lifts follow six days later. Only four in-town restaurants on Visit Telluride's list have closures that end before the lifts start:
- Liz, closed Oct. 24 through Nov. 16
- Bruno, closed Oct. 25 through Nov. 19
- Caravan, closed Oct. 15 through Nov. 22
- La Cocina de Luz, closed Oct. 15 through Nov. 22
Two places close right as the season starts. Floradora Saloon is listed as closed Nov. 21 through Dec. 4, so it shuts the day after the gondola comes back. The Patio is the new restaurant at 138 E. Colorado Ave. It is open daily this fall except Nov. 24 through 28. That covers Thanksgiving, opening day, and the Friday and Saturday after. The National has been serving Tuesday through Saturday, 4:30 to 9 p.m., since Oct. 20. It closes Nov. 15 and returns after Dec. 4.
On the mountain, Allred's is listed as closed through Nov. 25, the day before the lifts' targeted opening. In Mountain Village, Tracks Café & Bar's closure runs through Nov. 22. Alloy Kitchen's runs through Nov. 19. Several other Village spots, including Black Iron Kitchen, Kettle Coffee and Timber Room, list Oct. 26 closures with no reopening date yet.
So the Thanksgiving holiday arrives with the gondola running and the lifts turning, while most of Main Street's dinner rooms are still closed.
The December wave, week by week
Most in-town kitchens return in one tight cluster over about two weeks. Here is the order based on the listed closure dates:
- Closures end Dec. 3: New Sheridan Bar, New Sheridan Chop House and New Sheridan Rooftop Bar
- Closures end Dec. 4: The National, Floradora Saloon, the Coffee Cowboy Cart and the Coffee Cowboy General Store
- Closure ends Dec. 6: The Grand
- Closure ends Dec. 8: Tellurado Studio, the fine-art venue and bar at 219 E. Colorado Ave.
- Closures end Dec. 10: 221 South Oak and La Marmotte
- Closure ends Dec. 17: Sidework, which has been closed since Oct. 3 and has the longest closure on the in-town list
Noel Night falls in the middle of that run on Dec. 9. Visit Telluride describes it as the start of the holiday season, with the ceremonial Ski Tree lighting and shopping at local retailers. Mountain Village's Holiday Prelude follows on Dec. 12 and 13. Communion Wine Bar and Siam Talay in the Village are listed as reopening Dec. 11 and Dec. 10. By the second weekend of December, about two weeks after the first chair, most of the in-town lineup is back. Sidework is still to come, and several Village spots have yet to post reopening dates.
Visit Telluride notes that its list is still being updated, so call ahead for any date that a plan depends on.
The kitchens that stay open through the gap
For the next several weeks, these are the places in town that are open, according to the Visit Telluride schedule:
| Place | Fall schedule |
|---|---|
| Baked in Telluride | Open daily |
| Brown Dog | Daily, 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. |
| Butcher & The Baker | 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday, 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday |
| Cornerhouse Grille | Open daily |
| Kazahana | Tuesday through Saturday, 5 to 9 p.m. |
| Last Dollar Saloon | Open |
| Rustico | Tuesday through Sunday, 5 to 9 p.m. |
| Smugglers | Daily, noon to 8 p.m. |
| Steamies Burger Bar | Open daily |
| Stronghouse | Wednesday through Sunday, noon to 8 p.m. |
| Telluride Truffle | Daily, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. |
| There. | Wednesday through Sunday, 4 to 9 p.m., after a closure through Oct. 27 |
| Van Atta | 1 to 10 p.m. Sunday through Wednesday, 1 to 11 p.m. Thursday through Saturday |
| West End Bistro | Breakfast daily, dinner Monday through Wednesday |
| Clark's Market | Open daily |
Most of the dinner options on that list wind down by 8 or 9 p.m., and several skip Mondays and Tuesdays. Van Atta stays open until 11 p.m. Thursday through Saturday. Down at Lawson Hill, Conoco is open daily, and Telluride Brewing Company's Craft Kitchen & Pizza is open Wednesday through Sunday. Both are worth knowing about on the nights when town is quiet.
One bar is counting down instead of reopening
O'Bannon's doesn't appear on the Visit Telluride list. According to Fitzpatrick's account to Telluride News, though, it is staying open late straight through the off-season and the holidays until it closes for good. That makes it one of the few late rooms on East Colorado Avenue during the weeks covered here.
The pub has been operating for almost 40 years. Fitzpatrick started bartending there in 1994, when it was on South Fir Street next to Baked in Telluride. She learned the business from the original owners, Harry Force and Ray Prince, and later became the owner herself. After Prince retired and Force passed away, Fitzpatrick, her husband, Randy, and the staff kept the bar going. In 2016 the bar lost its lease on South Fir and moved into the downstairs space of the old Fly Me to the Moon Saloon. That space had a stage, and it has since hosted bluegrass, Blues and Brews, jazz, DJs and Latin Night.
"I feel like we tried to keep that spirit of O'Bs alive. You can come in and be from wherever."
Fitzpatrick said that to Telluride News. The paper reports that the partners behind The Patio upstairs bought the space but not the business. They plan to open a bar there soon after O'Bannon's closes, with very little change to the room, under a different name. The Patio itself opened in the former Bistro space this fall. A separate Telluride News story names the partners as brothers Mike and Matt Fulton and Andrew Lechleiter. In that story, director of operations Alex Laney says the restaurant is aiming for affordability and approachability, with the full menu served from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.
The Main Street that comes back in December has a few doors closed
When the December wave finishes, the street won't look quite like it did last winter. According to Telluride News, Hotel Columbia, across from the gondola station, closed on Sept. 2 for a renovation expected to take about two years. Owner Bridgitt Evans plans to reopen it in late 2027 under the same name and ownership. The Cosmopolitan restaurant in that building closed in April. The same report covers T.Karn, Tesha Karn's shop, which moved from 394 W. Colorado Ave. to 359 E. Colorado Ave. Karn described the move as a chance to expand on the sunny side of Main Street.
Taken together, here's what to expect. Liz, Bruno, Caravan and La Cocina de Luz cover the run-up to opening day. The year-round kitchens carry Thanksgiving week while The Patio and Floradora take their breaks. The New Sheridan, The National, The Grand, 221 South Oak and La Marmotte have closures ending between Dec. 3 and Dec. 10, so they return in the days around Noel Night. O'Bannon's stays open nightly until New Year's Eve, and then its room changes hands.
Main Street's comings and goings are part of what owning in Telluride feels like from week to week, and Matthew Hintermeister keeps track of them year-round. If you'd like a local's read on how the town's changing storefronts fit into your own plans here, Matthew Hintermeister welcomes you to Request a Private Consultation.
