Cocktail and burger bar, The W, opening in South Park Hill

Carrie and Ernest Wigglesworth have lived in the South Park Hill neighborhood with their son for 11 years, watching “restaurants come and go,” Carrie said.

One of those, The Elm, was a neighborhood watering hole for the couple and a particularly tough goodbye when it closed in Dec. 2020 after 16 years. The space at 5001 E. Colfax Ave. was briefly home to Crush Wing + Tap, but it closed in May 2022 and has been sitting vacant since.

“We’ve seen and heard neighbors clambering for a good space that they can rely on, and it’s been a dream of my husband’s to own his own restaurant,” Carrie said. “When we saw that this space was available, we kind of bumped that dream up a bit.”

On the first weekend of March, the Wigglesworths are opening The W in the former Elm space. The name? “Wigglesworth was too hard to fit on a sign,” Carrie said.

Since South Park Hill is “inundated with pizza places,” they’ll offer a variety of craft burgers, sandwiches and charcuterie. On the drinks side, there will be cocktails featuring Colfax-related names, like The Grand Ave. (the street’s original name) and The 1868, named after the year that Grand became Colfax in honor of former U.S. Vice President Schuyler Colfax.

The W will have 12 taps with beer from Park Hill breweries, like Long Table Brewhouse, 4 Noses Brewing and Station 26 Brewing. There will also be wines from around the world.