South Broadway music venue HQ badly flooded in Denver

Denver music venue HQ, a popular anchor of the city’s South Broadway cultural corridor, is asking for donations after the owners said a water main break flooded its basement with at least 10 feet of water, destroying its contents and threatening to close the business for up to four months.

“Our entire 3,200 sq. ft basement, with 10-12 ft high ceilings, was completely filled with water from floor to ceiling,” owners Scott Happel and Peter Ore wrote in a Monday morning press statement, accompanied by photos of the apparent flooding. “Denver Water barely got water turned off to the entire block in time to prevent water from reaching the main venue space upstairs.”

The break occurred around 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 15, underneath the Broadway and directly in front of HQ, at 60 S. Broadway, Happel and Ore wrote. It shot high-pressure water “directly at our basement brick wall. The pressure build-up caused our basement wall to bow and eventually break open, pushing tons of dirt, mud, and water into the basement,” they said in the statement.

The venue was formerly known as 3 Kings Tavern and has hosted thousands of punk, metal, hip hop, indie rock and comedy shows over its 14 years. It closed in 2020 as one of the first pandemic business victims, but was revived by industry veterans Happel and Ore, who own The Oriental Theater and have dozens of years of venue ownership and booking at Soda Jerk Presents, Live Nation and other companies under their belts.

In July, HQ hosted some of the biggest indoor shows at the annual Underground Music Showcase on South Broadway — the vibrant strip’s biggest commercial event of the year.

The venue is now asking for donations at tickets.holdmyticket.com/tickets/420578 to pay for repairs to the broken basement wall. The statement warned that a worst-case scenario could see the club closed for 3 to 4 months. It’s impossible to calculate the cost of repairs “and replacing that which has been destroyed,” they wrote.