Rep. Lauren Boebert’s (R-CO) restaurant, Shooters Grill, has closed its doors after the building in Rifle, Colorado, changed ownership and did not renew its lease.
The restaurant, where staff were encouraged to carry guns openly, closed for the foreseeable future on Sunday after operating for eight years. The business made Boebert a local celebrity and propelled her into the spotlight that led her to win election to the U.S. House in 2020.
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“We were like a family,” she told the Post Independent, a local outlet. “I would say Shooters, for any employee, was their life. We lived and breathed it every single day. They were a part of this culture and brand that we created in Rifle, and there was a lot of pride with that.”
The landlord told Boebert and her husband, Jayson, in June that their lease would not be renewed, which the lawmaker said came as a “shock.” The reasoning for the end of the lease remains murky. Boebert told the Post Independent that they’re “not being evicted. The lease is not being renewed — that’s a big difference.” The Daily Beast reported in June that “a person familiar with the arrangement said the property manager felt he had a ‘moral’ imperative to close the business, and had planned to lease the space to another restaurant,” but this has not been confirmed.
The Boeberts are hoping to continue the brand in another location.
“We would just dramatically scale it back because, obviously, we’re not in our building,” the congresswoman said. “It may look like a Shooters coffee shop with pastries and some easy breakfast sandwiches and merchandise.”
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Boebert opposed Colorado’s restaurant COVID-19 policies by refusing to comply with stay-at-home orders, causing the restaurant to lose its food license temporarily in May 2020. As a business, it lost more than $600,000 between 2018 and 2020, according to the Denver Post.
Boebert is a House Freedom Caucus member and is closely aligned with former President Donald Trump.
