"El Five now seems to be a destination for out-of-towners. I think it's a lot of date nights and special occasions. That wasn't what we planned to be or do," Edible Beats founder Justin Cucci told DiningOut this fall. "I think what's different about Pip is that we really want to keep our neighborhood roots alive."

Most owners would love to have a fifth-floor tapas room booked with special-occasion dinners. Cucci treats it as a problem worth fixing, and his fix is four floors down. Pip Food + Drink sits at 2930 Umatilla St., in the ground-floor space Sushi Ronin left in 2025. The group set its debut for early November.

Pip and the group's August takeover of Wooden Spoon point the same way. Edible Beats is spending its 2026 growth winning back LoHi locals, not adding more destination dining.

A group that had stopped opening restaurants

Edible Beats wasn't looking to expand. In an October interview with The Denver Post, Cucci said the group decided around 2017 that it was "putting down the pencil." After COVID it sold Ophelia's and converted to an Employee Stock Ownership Plan, so it's now employee-owned. He put the head count above 500 back then and around 300 today.

Executive chef Corey Ferguson put it more bluntly in a BusinessDen story republished by The Denver Post. The team thought it was done opening restaurants "unless this particular scenario played out." When Sushi Ronin moved out after about a decade, the scenario arrived.

Cucci said he wouldn't have opened anywhere else right now. "It's just too risky and too expensive." Downstairs from El Five, which he said "does still have overflow and has a pretty solid fan base," the group gets a head start. "We're not starting at zero."

So Pip only exists because El Five became popular with people from outside LoHi. Its whole design is aimed at the people who live around it.

How Pip is built to be different from the room upstairs

Most of the choices Edible Beats has described for Pip make it easier to walk in on short notice and order a little.

• Reservations only for groups of six or more. Everyone else walks in.
• Smaller plates at lower prices. BusinessDen reported plates at $5 to $9 and cocktails at $8 to $15.
• A "trip" instead of courses. DiningOut describes it as three pintxos paired with three micro-cocktails. Ferguson told BusinessDen the price was still being set.
• More of a bar crowd. Ferguson said Pip is aiming for a bar crowd, which sets it apart from the group's other restaurants. He also wants it to pull in people before and after dinner at El Five.

Ferguson laid out the idea in one line: "At our other restaurants, you know what you're gonna get – an app, entree, desert and wine. Here we want people to express themselves to what they're trying to do, whether that's one bite, one cocktail and you're onto your evening or you want to come in and make a meal of it."

The name works the same way. A pip is a dot on a die or a domino, a single small unit.

What's on the menu

Ferguson has been with Edible Beats since 2011 and was El Five's opening chef. He continues to lead El Five's kitchen and is building Pip's culinary program, and he told DiningOut the menus share a focus on Spanish food with Levantine and North African influence but don't overlap. El Five serves composed plates. Pip's menu is built around Basque-style pintxos, many meant to be eaten in one bite, sold as single tastes or in three- and five-piece portions.

Dishes previewed in DiningOut's coverage:

• Crab mousse on a shrimp chip seasoned with lemon and paprika
• Monkfish skewer with Kauai shrimp, pickled shallot and red chermoula
• Duck brocheta with pearl onions, mushrooms and Oloroso sherry
• Rollito de Iberico, a crispy roll of dry-cured ham, tetilla cheese, artichoke pesto and truffle aioli
• Htipiti dip of whipped feta, roasted peppers and chili honey, served with house pita
• Mushroom yufka pastry with KM 39 cheese, leeks and green romesco

Bar manager Ky Belk helped build El Five's original drink program and is setting up Pip's. The list includes micro-cocktails like the mezcal-based Barraquito Martini and The Press, made with chardonnay, calvados, verjus blanc, honey and white pepper. BusinessDen also mentioned kalimotxo, the Basque mix of red wine and cola.

The room

This is the first time Edible Beats has moved into a second-generation space, meaning one another restaurant already built out. Root Down, Linger and Vital Root all work the history of their buildings into the design. Cucci called the El Five building "basically a rectangular box," so he's filling it from his storage unit.

Plans call for an accent wall of about 200 vintage seltzer bottles you can see the kitchen through, gold and brass screens around the booths, and painted perforated-metal sheets hung from the ceiling, inspired by Moroccan textiles. Pip covers 2,000 square feet, with room for about 100 guests inside and another 20 on a seasonal patio.

Ferguson's planned hours were Wednesday and Thursday from 3 to 11 p.m., and 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. on weekends. DiningOut said Pip would post details on "fiesta hour" specials and weekend brunch to its Instagram, which is the best place to check current hours before you go.

The bakery they never planned to own

If Pip is a strategy, Wooden Spoon Cafe & Bakery at 2418 W. 32nd Ave. was a rescue. Westword reported in July that Edible Beats had bought the bakery, with the reopening set for Wednesday, Aug. 5. The group said at the time that all five employees, plus the recipes and equipment, would stay.

"The Wooden Spoon [purchase] was out of the blue, so I can't even say that was a strategy," Cucci told The Denver Post. "That was a bakery we loved and in a neighborhood we love. I'm a day one person there."

Feedback signs went up in the shop, and Cucci said the message is simple: "We have not changed a single price. We have not changed a single recipe. We're just still finding our feet." He described the old operation as mom-and-pop, with most recipes living in the former owners' heads, and said the new team doesn't yet have their 14 or 15 years of knowing when a dough is perfectly proofed.

The blueberry scone Cucci has been eating there for 14 years is still on the counter. The one new item he mentioned is a fall maple-bacon croissant from the new chef, which he called "very dangerous." In September, Ferguson said the bakery was selling out of pastries every day after a slow first couple of weeks. Wooden Spoon is open Wednesday through Sunday mornings and closed Monday and Tuesday, so plan to get there early.

Asked what he expects from Highland, Cucci said: "I want to earn our place, and earn respect from the neighborhood. We want to be good neighbors." He acknowledged that a group this size "could look corporate."

Five Edible Beats spots, one LoHi weeknight

Once Pip is up and running, LoHi will have four Edible Beats restaurants and the bakery, all within a short walk of each other. Ferguson said Linger draws the most customers, followed by El Five, Root Down and then Vital Root, the group's Tennyson Street restaurant. The happy hours fall at different times, which helps if you want to go early.

Cucci's favorite dishes give you a short tasting list for the group's established places:

1. Devils on Horseback at Root Down. A Peppadew pepper wrapped in bacon with cheese fondue and almond inside.
2. Masala dosa at Linger. Cucci points out that not every Indian restaurant serves it.
3. Bison meatballs at El Five. He admits they're a little out of season.

The holidays bring one more reason to walk 32nd Avenue. The LoHi Holiday BAZAAR runs Saturday, Dec. 12, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 2138 W. 32nd Ave. It's free and outdoors, and organizers listed 66 confirmed makers as of Oct. 28. Organizers note that extreme weather can cancel an event without a rescheduled date.

At Six Seasons, Wayne and Brooke track these LoHi openings and changes because clients ask about them, whether they've lived near 32nd Avenue for years or are just starting to look. If you'd like a local's take on the blocks around Umatilla and Boulder Street, we're glad to share it. Six Seasons Realty is ready when you are. Start a Neighborhood Consultation.