For Sedalia’s Wide Open Saloon’s owners, Leah and Todd Hills, embracing their newest endeavor, Wide Awake Eatery on Wilcox Street, was about bringing an elevated brunch to Downtown Castle Rock.
“We love brunch food,” Leah explains. “And for our menu, we just created what our favorite dishes are and decided to implement them into that space, and thought that it was something that the community could really enjoy.”
With their first restaurant, Wide Open Saloon, such a raving success, Leah and Todd understand the ins and outs of bringing a community together with food, live music, and dancing. Despite opening the weekend before the COVID shutdown, Wide Open Saloon surpassed all expectations.
“That was a bit of a challenge,” Todd explains about opening with the impending epidemic lurking. “But we got through it and actually made a lot of new friends during that period of time because we had lots and lots of outdoor seating, probably more than anyone in the county. We were attracting party buses from Denver.”
What could have been a tough time ended up being a true success story, where Wide Open Saloon was hiring when others were letting people go. Now, five years later, Leah and Todd still have many of the same employees with them.
With Wide Open Saloon featuring an elevated comfort food menu, Leah and Todd wanted to share something similar in downtown Castle Rock; hence, Wide Awake Eatery opened on June 1, 2025.
“We really focus on how the atmosphere feels,” Leah says. “It’s a bit elevated, just like our menu is, but it’s really more of a gathering place for the community.”
While they originally opened with breakfast, lunch, and dinner, they paused the dinner option to ensure the earlier meals were spectacular first and foremost.
“We thought, let’s pause the dinner for just a little while and just really focus in on breakfast and lunch,” Leah explains. “Make that excellent, make it great. Then, when we really have what we wanted to give to the community from the beginning, we’ll open dinner back up.”
“We lived for three years across the street in the Encore,” Todd says. “We’re very familiar with what Castle Rock had to offer as far as breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and they’ve done a great job. There are some great restaurants down there, but we kind of felt like the first niche that needed to be filled was a fun brunch/breakfast place.”
Wide Awake Eatery entered the scene, serving up fun along with culinary delights and offering a twist on breakfast classics.
“We’ve got a little bit of everything on the menu that are super fun dishes like our Bananas Foster French toast. I always tell someone, if they order it, don’t let the person sitting next to you have a bite because you won’t get the dish back,” Todd jokes.
Now, having perfected their elevated menu of breakfast and lunch, the dinner menu has been reintroduced to the fold. Using their favorite dishes from restaurants throughout Colorado, Arizona, and even Texas, Leah and Todd brought an affordable, fine dining experience to Castle Rock.
While they brought over some of Wide Open’s huge sellers, such as the Italian sandwich, Birria-style tacos, and candied bacon, their menu at Wide Awake also features new and exciting dishes.
“We’ve taken things that we’ve loved, kind of put our own twist on them,” Leah says. “Kind of elevate them as much as possible. And that’s our menu.”
Currently living in Sedalia, fifteen minutes from each location, Leah and Todd credit their success to the many people behind the scenes who support them.
“We have an amazing team behind us to be able to help us and execute our vision,” Leah comments proudly. “From our management team to the front of the house, back to the house, we’ve always said, that’s really what makes us successful–our people.”
“We’ve got a little bit of everything on the menu that are super fun dishes like our Bananas Foster French toast.