Colorado restaurant that reopened against state order closes permanently

The restaurant in Castle Rock, Colo., that defied state orders by reopening during the coronavirus pandemic announced it would be closing permanently, The Denver Post reported.

C&C Breakfast and Korean Kitchen previously filed a lawsuit against Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) for suspending the restaurant’s license for 30 days, calling the move unlawful. Polis ordered the license suspension after owners Jesse and April Arellano opened the restaurant on Mother’s Day despite a statewide shutdown.

Last week, the restaurant’s Facebook page said the owners would not renew C&C’s lease after July.

The statement highlighted the controversy that ensued after the Arellanos decided to reopen the restaurant’s doors.

“The hypocrisy of the lockdowns was disappointing as big business were not scrutinized like small businesses were, riots are okay, personal funerals are not. I lost my Dad in April, so this really hit home,” the owners wrote on social media.

“This is America, land of the free home of the brave, yet citizens are being treated as criminals, while criminals are praised,” they added.

The couple’s social media message also said the second C&C Kitchen in Colorado Springs would remain open, as the decision was made to stop the “financial bleeding” between both locations.

Jesse Arellano said he was asked what he would say to Polis following his restaurant license suspension.

“I would say ‘For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?’ (Mark 8:36),” he wrote.

He added that general business sales are hurting as a result of the pandemic restrictions as well as staffing.

Following the restaurant opening its doors in May for Mother’s Day, April Arellano wrote on social media that C&C “would go out of business if I don’t do something. … If I lose the business at least I’m fighting,” the Post reported.

The Arellanos said they “choose to trust God in everything we do,” not the government, in the announcement Saturday.

“When hard times come, you see who your true friends are. The ones that stick with you, the ones that don’t just go with popular opinion. We have made so many good friends, and a lot of enemies,” they said, adding that they have never seen “so much love” while simultaneously receiving “so much hate.”