Strayhorn Grill is converting patio dining area into indoor seating

Tim Harty, The Business Times 

Patio dining is a common feature at Grand Junction restaurants, but not as popular if the patio is on the west side of the building. Western Colorado’s summer sun is a punisher extraordinaire for anything facing west.

That’s why Strayhorn Grill, 456 Kokopelli Drive in Fruita, Unit J, is saying goodbye to its patio and hello to more indoor seating. The restaurant has begun the conversion with its former patio already walled off.

When it’s done, the restaurant will have 40 more indoor seats, a better flow to the seating area and the ability to close off areas for parties to rent for events.

Aaron Smith bought the restaurant in August 2022, and Shelly Smith, Aaron’s mom and manager of Strayhorn Grill, said they initially thought the patio would be a popular area for diners. It wasn’t, and they know why.

“The patio is on the west side of the building, which is just the hot side, and it always seemed that it was either too windy or too hot or too cold,” said Shelly Smith, who said the number of ideal days for using Strayhorn’s patio amounted to about two to three weeks. “Even on great days, like a day that I thought we would staff up the patio, like today’s gonna be a perfect patio day, people would just choose to sit inside. So, I guess, I like to think that we’re making it down home and comfortable inside. They just wanna stay inside. And, you know, no flies.”

After the first year of operating the Strayhorn Grill and assessing what diners wanted, the verdict on the patio was “it’s just limited in its use,” and its continuation “just didn’t make sense,” Shelly Smith said.

Meanwhile, the restaurant’s indoor seating was often maxed out on weekends, so the final assessment was: The patio space “would be much more useful and productive to change it to indoor seating.”

The conversion didn’t start immediately. Instead it began this summer, almost two years later, with Aaron Smith and his dad, Rod Smith, doing most of the work, which is saving them some money.

“We’re able to do a cash out-of-pocket, and we’re just so thrilled with that,” Shelly Smith said. “We’ve been saving and saving for it, so now we can do it, and we just decided, ‘Why wait?’ We’re busting at the seams on the weekends, and it just seemed like the right time to do it.”

When the work is finished, a wall that currently has a lot of windows will become a solid wall, and there will be an opening to that former patio space. Seating will increase from the current 120 to about 160.

“It’s not really a ton more seating, just a ton more area and a better flow for the restaurant, and more seating areas for people to be able to get away from the center of the room,” Shelly Smith said. “We’re able to create another room that could be possibly a meeting room or a party room that we could actually close off and then rent out for events. That has turned into a very big need here in Fruita, probably even in the valley overall, someplace to have a rehearsal dinner or a wedding reception or even a funeral get-together, business meetings, those kinds of things. So, it’ll be handy for that.

“But just on the day-to-day, we hope it’ll give a little more options to customers to spread out and maybe have a little bit more private areas that won’t be quite so busy and loud, that sort of thing.”

Additional space also will allow for a small waiting area that the restaurant needs.

Shelly Smith didn’t divulge the cost of the renovation, but she said, “All I will tell you is it’s going to be worth it.”

She also wanted to make a point about the process the restaurant had to go through to build the additional space, and that is: “Just how awesome the city of Fruita planning and development departments have been in working with this project. … The way they have revamped the city of Fruita and the building permits and the building department down there, they have just been awesome, working with them and getting proper permits, the inspections and the online applications and all that.”