The August 17 Facebook post reads:
It is with heavy hearts that we announce the closing of West Flanders ... We have been honored to be a part of the Boulder community for the last ten years and have been blessed to succeed through floods, fires, a pandemic, and countless other challenges," they wrote. "Our incredible staff has leaned in over and over again to help nurture this business through tough times, and the Boulder community has consistently shown up for us. We are deeply grateful for all the care that so many people have shown.
There is no easy time to make a decision like this, particularly having been fortunate enough to operate in such a great location, but we simply could not commit to another decade of operations at this point in time. Between the three of us owners, we have nearly a hundred collective years in the brewing and restaurant business. While we have a few good years left, the simple truth is that all of us need and want to narrow our focus and turn our attention to other ongoing projects. Like so many others, we learned during the pandemic that sometimes less is more and life is too short to be too busy all the time.
West Flanders opened in September 2012 in a two-story building on the Pearl Street Mall, taking the place of BJ’s Restaurant & Brewery, which moved to another location in Boulder later that year.
While it served its own food, the focus was on Lutz's Belgian-style beers — something he had became known for in Boulder County, having worked for Left Hand Brewing and then with the Heinritz brothers at their former brewery and restaurant in Boulder, RedFish New Orleans Brewhouse. Lutz was also the second-ever brewmaster at Oskar Blues Brewery in Lyons when it started canning its own beer in 2004.
