Denver Mountain Parks dropping Echo Lake Lodge concessionaire

On summer weekends in recent years, the parking lot at the Echo Lake Lodge is packed. The store is busy. There’s a wait at the restaurant. More and more, people are visiting to get a piece of Colorado. 

“They love to come in. Because we have a little bit of everything here,” said Denise Melberg, general manager of the HW Stewart Company that runs the concessions at the lodge. “We’re here for them.”

But the company will no longer have the concession contract it has held since 1965. 

“It seems that Denver wants to go in a different direction,” said concessionaire and part owner of the company Dustin Day. “I don’t believe anyone in the city has poor intentions for this…