A Denver Classic Fades Away

For over forty years, Imperial Chinese stood as a Denver landmark, serving up familiar flavors to generations of locals. But in early 2025, the restaurant quietly shut its doors after a sudden ownership change left fans confused. A simple note on the door blamed rising costs, but no one explained why a place that had survived for decades couldn’t adapt. The restaurant’s story began in 1985 when Johnny Hsu, a Hong Kong-born chef trained in Cantonese, Szechuan, and even French cooking, opened his first solo venture. Before that, he had already run another Chinese restaurant called Jade Garden. Imperial Chinese became a staple, moving locations but staying true to its roots. Yet in 2023, Hsu sold the business to Dan Dietrich, a serial entrepreneur with a long list of other companies—from donut shops to an AI firm. Dietrich planned to expand Imperial into a fast-casual chain called Imperial Go, but none of those locations ever opened.The mystery deepens with Dietrich’s background. His company, Jogan Companies, owns multiple businesses, some of which have faced scrutiny. A 2022 investigation into one of his firms sparked a defamation lawsuit he later lost. Despite the legal trouble, Dietrich moved forward with big plans, even buying former sushi restaurants to repurpose. Yet no Imperial Go ever opened, and now even the original location is gone. The empty space on Broadway now stands as a reminder of how quickly a neighborhood can change. The old "coming soon" signs at Belleview Station still hang, but the website they linked to is dead. Without answers, locals are left guessing—was it really just about money, or did bigger problems play a role?