Beckon Enters an Exciting Second Chapter With a New Team
Chef de cuisine Kodi Simkins and general manager Justin Abad are leading the upscale RiNo restaurant into its next phase. Denise Mickelsen •
February 24, 2021
Chef
Kodi Simkins is no stranger to the open kitchen at Beckon, the high-end, 18-seat chef’s-counter restaurant located in a renovated tiny house on Larimer Street in RiNo. She was on hand when chef
Duncan Holmes and director of experience
Allison Anderson opened the compact spot in 2018, and, after serving as chef de cuisine at the Wolf’s Tailor and working for a spell at River Bear American Meats, Simkins has been cooking part time with Holmes since July 2020. Which is why it makes so much sense that about a month ago, Simkins took over Beckon’s kitchen as its new chef de cuisine.
Under executive chef Duncan Holmes and director of experience Allison Anderson, Beckon flourished as Denver s first chef s counter-only restaurant when it opened in 2018. Beckon and Call, its sibling restaurant right next door, drew national attention, earning praise as one of the nation s top dining destinations. But Call was undergoing renovations when the pandemic hit Denver last March and has yet to reopen, and Beckon, with fewer than twenty seats indoors, has shifted all of its operations to its heated and covered patio and a handful of greenhouses.
Co-owner Craig Lieberman says that other changes are happening, too. While Holmes and Anderson worked their last days at Beckon last week and are departing to start their own project, new talent is already in place: Codi Simkins has been named executive chef, and Justin Abad takes over as general manager.