Denver restaurant group Edible Beats launches hydroponic farm

Tucked behind Vital Root restaurant, in a couple of parking spaces, a 320-square-foot shipping container is producing the same amount of veggies as a 2.5-acre farm.

It’s not Justin Cucci’s original vision for his vegetarian restaurant that opened in 2016 — which was to build a four-story glass cube with three levels of hydroponic planters and a patio, where people could eat where their food is grown. “But that cost more money than anyone would lend us,” said Cucci, the founder of the Edible Beats group, which also owns popular Denver restaurants El Five, Root Down, Linger and Ophelia’s Electric Soapbox.

Instead, Cucci and his employees started a small-scale garden in the restaurant’s backyard, at 3915 Tennyson St., operated a micro-green grow room and rented plots of dirt around town to grow their own herbs and vegetables. In the end, though, “It probably cost us three times more than the market price,” Cucci said. “Arugula was usually $6 a pound and ours probably cost...