A New Hotel In Breckenridge, Colorado Is Actually ‘A Restaurant With Rooms’

07.11.2023 - 21:31 / forbes.com / New Hotel

It’s an oft-repeated bit after a long, leisurely meal at restaurants everywhere. Servers ask if they can get you anything else; diners quip “how about a wheelbarrow to wheel us out?”

After a night of dining and drinking, a direct route to bed, indeed, is a lovely convenience. Now, in Breckenridge—an idyllic Colorado ski town—retiring to bed right after a meal winds down is a reality, though it’s via a short elevator ride, no wheelbarrows required.

The Carlin, a new seafood restaurant in the heart of downtown Breckenridge, has four luxury guest suites on its top floor and a cozy tavern serving casual eats and craft cocktails in the basement. Really, The Carlin is a restaurant … but with rooms, and it’s one of the coziest spots to stay in Breckenridge. Just in time for the 2023-24 ski season, the new Main Street mainstay is taking reservations for dinner as well as overnight stays.

The idea for a restaurant-centric hotel was sparked back when restaurateur Phillips Armstrong was on the ski racing circuit and he kept stumbling upon great restaurants in small European towns that had rooms available upstairs for overnight stays.

“It seemed like every ski town that I went to had restaurants that had rooms,” says Armstrong, the CEO and founder of Destination Hospitality. Back in the states, he realized that restaurants doubling as bespoke inns were a rare concept, with unique places like Longman & Eagle in Chicago filling the niche. There, a hip Logan Square neighborhood restaurant has an impressive whiskey collection and a half dozen rooms.

Armstrong began searching Colorado’s Summit County for spaces that could accommodate the three-in-one hospitality concept, and came across a three-story space that once housed a pizza shop in Breckenridge’s downtown.

The Carlin in Breckenridge now enjoys a prime location on Main Street in the picturesque mountain town that’s filled with colorful Victorian buildings and where powderhounds gather each December for the Ullr Fest, a plea to the Norse god of snow to bless the mountains with plenty of fresh powder all season long.

Opening day at Breckenridge, a mountain with five peaks and 2,908 skiable acres, is set for Nov. 10, 2023. Breckenridge is on the Epic Pass.

The Carlin’s main floor restaurant has a raw bar to supply its seafood towers, served with oysters, shrimp, crab, ceviche and pickled mussels with accouterments. A catch of the day, crudo, and smoked fish with a scallop dip are also on the menu alongside belly-warming dishes and comfort staples (think: grouper fish and chips and a smoked clam chowder) that skiers crave after a day on the mountain. The chic restaurant has an open kitchen and wood-fired oven.

On the subterranean level, guests will find a more