The Briarhurst Manor Estate, a full-service restaurant known for quality cuisine and private parties, closed on Jan. 10 due to a combination of slow business and a remodel planned by the building’s owners, according to Janice Montoya, the Briarhurst’s sales and marketing director and wife of the owner, Ken Healey. It is unclear when the restaurant will reopen.
“We are hoping this is temporary,” Montoya said.
While the restaurant will be closed, Montoya said the Paragon School [a culinary school] will still be using the space, as will Living Springs Church.
As the Briarhurst website explains, “the stately Victorian Manor House was built in 1876 by the founder of Manitou Springs, Dr. William Bell, of London, England” and “the finely grained pink sandstone Tudor Manor displays the architectures and landscaping of an English Country House, complete with the bubbling Fountain Creek passing through the estate and … an unrivaled view of Pike’s Peak.”
Montoya said their Denver-based landlords “want to remove an addition that was added 40 years ago and bring the manor back to more of its original state.
“We can’t operate the restaurant … and have the restaurant be remodeled at the same time,” she said.
But a remodel is only the latest factor piled up against staying open.
Montoya said 2024 saw a steep decline in business – December 2024 was a full 80% below that same month in 2023. It was also a record year for patrons making reservations and then cancelling, or simply never showing up.
Though Montoya said it wasn’t entirely clear what caused the business drop off, issues with location and signage have plagued Briarhurst Manor long term. The building, located at 404 Manitou Ave, is set back from the road, so passersby can’t see it as clearly. The signage is also not by the driveway, further complicating finding the place. This, Montoya explained, is because Briarhurst Manor does not own that part of the land due to the way a portion of the land was subdivided and sold by a previous owner years ago.
Yet another compounding issue is how much of the work of running the place has fallen to Montoya in recent years, ever since a serious ankle injury two years ago forced Healey to step back from running the place alongside Montoya.
But even before the ankle injury threw a wrench in things, Montoya and Healey were looking for a potential buyer for their restaurant business as far back as late 2019. Then Covid hit and “nobody wanted to buy” Montoya said.
“The timing was bad,” she said. “And the timing’s been bad for a couple years now.”
She said they were under contract in late 2022 and into 2023, and it looked promising, but the closing kept getting pushed back and then ultimately fell through.
Montoya said there is at least one highly interested party right now, as well, but with the remodel getting underway it’s hard to know when or if a deal will go through now, either.
“It is heartbreaking,” she said. “I wish there was a way I could keep things going.”
“I hope in the future … there will be a new owner who will bring back the Briarhurst to its glory days, and the food will be as good as people remember it under Chef Siggi [Krauss, who purchased the property in the ‘70s and made it into a fine dining establishment],” Montoya said. She added that she’d like to retire after the restaurant changes hands, or perhaps go back to focusing on events, like she did before her husband’s injury necessitated taking on so many other tasks: planning Briarhurst Manor events including weddings birthday parties, retirement parties, and charitable banquets.
Montoya advised persons with a Groupon for Briarhurst Manor contact Groupon for a refund but said that persons with gift certificates will be able to redeem them when the restaurant reopens, regardless of owner or how old the gift certificate is.
“We would put that in as a condition [of a sale]”, Montoya said.
She is hopeful that Briarhurst Manor will reopen before events already on the books are due to take place. There’s a handful of months until then.
