For some, the looming redevelopment of the iconic Red Lion Building could spell the end of Bridge Street as we know it. For others, including Scott Rednor of Shakedown Bar and developers Jeff and Charlie Selby, the project represents a critical first step in the next phase of Vail Village’s evolution.

In either case, the reality is this: The Red Lion Building, which dates to Vail’s opening season in 1962–63, is crumbling and in dire need of repair. Longtime tenants recall that when Denver landlord and developer Jeff Selby (who, with partners, purchased the building in 1979 and recently became its sole owner) announced he would begin remodeling the landmark after the close of the 2025–26 ski season, they were ecstatic. “I got super excited because the building is falling apart and I was glad to hear it,” recalls Vidette Gehl, owner of Big Bear Bistro, a mom-and-pop sandwich shop that has called the Red Lion Building home for the past 18 years. “Come to find out, I’m not part of it. My lease wasn’t renewed.”

Ditto for Simone Larese a few doors down at the Blü Cow—an Old Vail business (founded in 1967 as the Blue Cow/Swiss Hotdog) that boasts a cult following among locals and visitors and has occupied a street-level space off Seibert Circle in the Red Lion Building since 2014. Rod Linafelter, co-owner of the Red Lion Restaurant, which dates to 1963, says Selby offered him dibs on reconfigured dining and kitchen space that would replace the Blü Cow and a vacated T-shirt shop, at significantly more rent. He declined. 

Meanwhile, Shakedown proprietor Scott Rednor is all in. The musician, who moved from New Jersey to Vail to sing après with Phil Long at the Red Lion in 2009 and birthed his nightclub in the basement of the Red Lion Building three years later, will be expanding that business into an eponymous East Coast-style deli and tequila bar that will occupy street-level space vacated by Big Bear Bistro. A new below-grade space will be created in the building when the existing Red Lion Restaurant on Bridge Street is torn down and replaced with retail shops. Beneath the new storefronts, Rednor will open Harper & Charly­’s, a full-service restaurant (named after his daughters) and concert venue akin to Aspen’s Belly Up. “As things got restructured, opportunities were offered, and I’m super grateful to be part of the replanning,” he says.

Business owners vacating the Red Lion Building who say they are either being shut out or priced out of the new development are sounding the alarm. 

“This is the most important location in Vail,” says Linafelter, who notes that he will not relinquish the Red Lion’s name to whatever business moves into the new restaurant space once his lease expires in 2027. “Arguably, you could say Pepi’s or Gorsuch would be right there too, but this is the most important parcel.” 
 Since going public about the Red Lion’s pending closure, Linafelter has witnessed an outpouring of support to the point where he can hardly walk up Bridge Street without having multiple conversations with strangers asking what’s going on and what they can do. When a Denver TV news team came to Vail to report a story about the restaurant’s predicament, the camera operator posted outside to shoot a few man-on-the-street interviews.

“People were lining up, ‘I want to give my opinion,’ ‘I want my voice to be heard,’” Linafelter recalls. “There was a red jacket—one of the Town of Vail info people—directing traffic, and they had to keep people from jumping in front of the camera to talk. People are passionate about this, but the town council says there’s nothing we can do.”

Around the corner at the Blü Cow, Larese taped a sign on the café’s door: “NOTICE: We are being forced out of this location on April 15. This will be our last winter here.” She encouraged patrons who voiced their support—and dismay at the prospect of having one last bite of an original Swiss Hot Dog—to petition the town council.

“They really didn’t read the room,” Larese says of the Red Lion Building’s developers, in an interview before the Blü Cow’s final day in the space. “People come in and say, ‘No, this isn’t happening!’ With me and now the Red Lion, the dominoes are falling. People don’t want this to be Aspen, but the Selbys do.” 
Charlie Selby, son of Jeff and a co-developer on the Red Lion project, insists otherwise. “We want to listen, we respect the opinions,” he says. “We’re trying to bring in as much of that into our vision, and we’re trying to set the building up for success for generations to come.” Countering public outcry vilifying Red Lion Building LLC for kicking legacy businesses to the curb, Selby says that the developers have made good faith efforts to help tenants either remain in the building or find suitable space elsewhere in the village or in Lionshead (Larese argues otherwise). As for rumors circulating on Reddit that the Red Lion Building’s new retail space will be leased to Louis Vuitton and/or Chanel, he promises that “we’ll do something that will fit in well with the nature of Vail, not necessarily high-end retail. We’re looking at bringing something that gives value to Vail.”

But the town itself cannot dictate the terms.

“We definitely understand people’s concerns,” explains Town of Vail Manager Russell Forrest. “But at the same time, it’s an example where the government has to follow the rules that we’ve created. Our elected officials have had to be empathetic but also honest in what we can and can’t do with land use controls and regulations.”

Two sticking points: While the town’s zoning regulations establish broad categories of permitted use, such as retail and restaurants, it can’t control which restaurant or retail shop can or cannot open at a particular address. Responding to public outcry after the 2025 closure of Los Amigos (another legacy restaurant at the top of Bridge Street), the council drafted a new rule dictating that there could be no net loss in square footage of food and beverage service within a building approved for renovation. Selby’s proposal accounts for that by offsetting Red Lion Building retail additions with new subterranean space for Harper & Charlys. “The floor plans are definitely different, but we’re looking at the same total amount of food and beverage,” Forrest says.

While the Red Lion Building’s developers may be adhering to the letter of Vail’s zoning regulations, the displaced wonder if the spirit of those rules isn’t being violated, arguing that every legacy business that disappears chips away at the resort community’s local soul.

“I’m not anti-growth or anti-capitalist, and I can appreciate Jeff’s vision, but at what cost?” asks Linafelter. “I have met people who have four generations of memories with their families here. They come back every single year because of the Red Lion. No Red Lion, no Vail.”

Rednor believes Linafelter bears at least some responsibility for his decision to walk away from the Red Lion Building’s developers.

“There’s a lot of really difficult decisions made that weren't mine in coming to terms with remodeling this iconic building,” he says. “When Jeff met with Rod and he said, ‘No, I don’t want to renew,’ what choices were left at that point? All circles led to this road. It is what it is; change is going to happen. So, what can we do now? We have to make the best of it. A lot of people are mistaking history for nostalgia. Is a building historic if it was built in 1962, or is it nostalgia that makes you want to keep it even if it’s not in good shape?”

Across Seibert Circle and upstairs at the Bridge Street Lodge Brad Kaemmer has been deflecting the ire of “end of Vail” doomsayers since Los Amigos (a locally beloved cantina established in 1972), served its last smothered burrito and sugary marg in April 2025. Since then, he and his wife, Amy, have been absorbed in reinventing the second-floor space, prime real estate overlooking Gondola One and Pepi’s Face, as the Sixty Two Society, a semi-private social/dining club with Michelin aspirations, slated to open before the end of this summer.

“We’re not some corporate private equity company that’s coming in,” says Kaemmer, a 1990 graduate of Vail Mountain School (class size: 12) whose father founded some of the Village’s first restaurants in the 1960s. “I own this business; I don’t have any investors. My wife and I live 25 yards away in Golden Peak, and we’ll be at the Sixty Two Society every day. So, when people start throwing shade on that, I say, ‘Oh, OK, interesting, tell me a little bit more about how long you’ve been here because when I grew up in Vail, a ski pass was $12.’”

He echoes Rednor’s contention that knee-jerk negative reactions to his business plan seem to be rooted in nostalgia.

“Evolution isn’t for everybody,” he says. “The Sixty Two Society is not just a money grab for me, this is a heritage and legacy project. I’m coming back to my hometown to try to do some good stuff. I want the locals. When we do our soft opening, all the ski patrollers, ski instructors, firefighters, and police officers will be invited. It’s really paying tribute to the place that was so good to my family. And we won’t ever forget that. That will never go unnoticed.”

At press time, as Big Bear Bistro’s Vidette Gehl was considering a move to Lionshead and the Red Lion's Rod Linafelter was scouting for a new location on Bridge Street, Simone Larese was fielding offers from sympathetic landlords in other ski towns (Telluride) and even some cities (Denver, Chicago, New York). But she was determined to keep the Blü Cow in Vail, if only to honor the legacy of her father, Ernst, who was born in Bolzano, raised in Salzburg, and moved from Perisher to open the original Blue Cow nearly 60 years ago in Vail Village. What would Ernst Larese, who died in 2015 at 84, think if he walked down Bridge Street today?

“He would say ‘Zese effing Americans don’t know how to run an effing ski town,’” Larese laughs, adopting her father's thick Austrian accent. “When I was a ski racer I was fortunate to see how Europeans gave their ski towns vitality and life with all different types of bars and restaurants. Vail did have that, but it's losing it rapidly.”

She recounts something her mother, Barbara, once told her about a friend from France who visited nascent Vail not long after the Lareses opened the Blue Cow. 
“She said, ‘It is very nice here, Barbara,’” recalls Larese. “‘But you will see that one day they will love it to death.’”

For Simone Larese, that day arrived on April 15, 2026.