Third Street's Most Recognizable Storefront Doesn't Make Headlines Anymore

On the third Thursday of most months from June through October, the city of Rifle closes down a stretch of downtown. Railroad Avenue shuts from Centennial Parkway to Fourth Street. Both sides of Third Street go car-free from three in the afternoon until nine at night. A band sets up in the middle of the intersection, a food truck parks along the curb, and for six hours the street belongs to families pushing strollers past storefronts instead of cars.

Walk that stretch on one of these nights and you'll pass 120 E 3rd Street without a second look. It's a Mexican restaurant now, part of the family-run Tapatios chain that's had a location in New Castle since 2020. The storefront's former tenant drew national political attention for much of the last decade.

The Corner That Used To Draw Cameras

That storefront used to be Shooters Grill, the gun-themed restaurant Lauren Boebert and her husband opened in 2013, where servers carried openly holstered handguns while they took orders. It became a stop on the national political circuit during Boebert's first congressional run in 2019, and it stayed a magnet for out-of-town attention for years after that. The Post Independent reported that in July 2022, the landlord, Milkin Enterprises, which also owns the cannabis dispensary Rifle Remedies, chose not to renew the lease. The space sat empty.

The next chapter began with a liquor-license application. In February 2023, Rifle City Council unanimously approved a liquor license for Tapatios Family Mexican Restaurant to take over the address. The Post Independent reported that owner Esmeralda Cornejo told the council: "It's a family restaurant." That's essentially what it's been since it opened, judging by current listings that show it running regular lunch and dinner hours seven days a week. Tapatios serves tacos and margaritas, with a full sitting bar where the gun-themed burger menu used to be.

About seven months passed between the lease ending and the February 2023 liquor-license approval for Tapatios.

Why The City Built A Reason To Walk Past It

Third Thursday on Third launched in 2025 as a monthly downtown series. City event coordinator Delaney Passmore described its goal when the series started. The Post Independent quoted her saying: "Rifle is here, we've got a lot to offer."

Third Thursday on Third gives Rifle residents a recurring weeknight gathering downtown. In its second season, it's still running the same basic playbook: close the street, book a local band, bring in one food truck, pick a theme, repeat monthly from June through October.

What's Left On The Calendar This Year

The series runs on the third Thursday of the month, which puts the final two 2026 dates on September 17 and October 15, before it goes quiet for winter. Both will follow the same street-closure pattern that's held since the series started: Railroad Avenue closed from Centennial Parkway to Fourth Street, both sides of Third Street closed to traffic, three to nine in the evening.

The monthly theme also holds steady year to year. Last year's September date carried an Oktoberfest theme with a live band and a food truck parked at the curb, and October closed out the season with a Halloween theme and a DJ. Earlier 2026 dates ran under a "Summer Block Party" banner with local bands including Zin Zin, Stone Kitchen, and Queen Bees, and food trucks like Hunger Tech and one serving Korean corn dogs. The specific acts change month to month and year to year. The format doesn't.

Where This Sits In Rifle's Fall

Third Thursday on Third's last two dates land at a specific point in the town's calendar, not a random one. The Garfield County Fair and Rodeo, held at the fairgrounds on Railroad Avenue, wrapped its main run on August 8 after headline sets from Casey Donahew and Sawyer Brown. That's Rifle's biggest annual draw, and it's done for the year. The Bookcliffs Arts Center's Hilltop Concert Series, the free Sunday-evening shows at 16th Street and Birch Avenue that run through the summer, has also wound down. What's left as a regular, no-cost public gathering downtown is Third Thursday on Third, and it only has two nights of runway before it, too, goes dark until next June.

Between those last two dates sits a more practical marker of the season turning over: the City of Rifle's Fall Cleanup, scheduled for September 21 through October 2, when residents can put eligible unwanted items curbside for city crews to haul away. It's not a festive event, but it's the kind of thing that tells you what part of the year you're in. Rifle spends late summer on rodeos and street parties. It spends the last weeks of September clearing out garages.

The Actual Point

None of this is really about Tapatios, or about a block party, or about a cleanup schedule. It's about what it means that a storefront which once drew a congresswoman's campaign coverage and national cable segments can now sit on a street that closes itself off once a month for a cover band and a food truck, and nobody treats the two facts as related. Third Street's identity right now isn't being written by one loud address. It's being built, slowly, by the same low-stakes Thursday evening repeating itself from June to October, with a different band and a different theme each time.

For residents, the series offers a chance to make downtown part of an ordinary weeknight.

If you're weighing what a stretch of Western Colorado is actually like to live near, day to day, rather than what shows up in a listing description, that's the kind of detail worth paying attention to. For a closer look at what's happening in the local market around Rifle and the rest of Mesa County, GSD Broker Team tracks both the transactions and the town.