Another beloved restaurant is saying goodbye to Colorado.

According to The Colorado Sun, the Breakfast King, Denver's iconic diner, shut its doors for good on Monday (Jan. 3) after a long-term struggle with staffing due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

RELATED: 100-Year-Old Northern Colorado Bar Closes for Good After Pandemic Struggles

For nearly 50 years, the restaurant's gigantic sign stood as a beacon to travelers driving across Colorado. Unsurprisingly, the diner made a huge impact on its patrons and its employees.

"These spaces are so important to bridging the gaps of humanity," Bree Davies, host of the City Cast Denver podcast and a Breakfast King regular, told the publication. "At Breakfast King, you'd see cops sitting next to punks, or construction workers getting ready for their shift sitting next to someone who had been out all night partying. There aren't many places left where people of diverse economic statuses are close together."

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Despite the restaurant's consistent staffing issues, The Colorado Sun reports that the closure came as a shock to the diner's employees, who allegedly did not know about the shutdown until the day before (Jan. 2).

While some are holding out hope that another business owner could purchase the eatery and continue its legacy, that prospect seems unlikely.

Westword chose the Breakfast King as the "Best 24/7 Diner" in 2019 — the publication also noted that Esquire labeled it as "one of the Best Breakfasts in America" in 2009.

The Breakfast King isn't the only Colorado restaurant that had to shutter its doors because of the pandemic. Check out 10 Fort Collins area restaurants that closed in 2020 in the gallery below.

10 Fort Collins Area Restaurants That Closed in 2020

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